


The Winter Emperor

by Island_of_Reil



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Awkward Boners, Bath Houses, Bath Sex, Bathing/Washing, Battle, Body Worship, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Sexism, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Cold Weather, Dark Magic, Fantastic Racism, Fever, Hair Washing, Homoerotic Egg Sucking, Horror Elements, Hot Springs & Onsen, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Beating, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Knives, Loyalty, M/M, Masturbation, Menial Labor, Minor Character Death, Ogres, Original Character Death(s), Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Stabbing, Travel, Wall Sex, Wet Dream, Wilderness, Worldbuilding, Yes Folks There Are Jizzmoppers in the Ethuveraz, hair cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2018-12-25 12:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 123,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12035460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: The Princess Sheveän does not heed Maia’s demand to bring Idra to him, but instead has Maia rendered unconscious and taken to the monastery in the north. He has no way of knowing that Csevet is coming to break him out of it. Neither of them have any way of knowing the rigors and dangers and griefs — and joys and pleasures — that lie ahead of them as they, and the allies they find and those they re-encounter, struggle to restore him to the throne of the Ethuveraz.





	1. Azharee

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY. Many thanks to [airo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/airo/pseuds/airo) for her very thorough and invaluable beta’ing, including multiple reads for continuity. Thanks also to [DachOsmin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin) for her feedback, and I cannot sufficiently thank the TGE IRC channel/Discord crowd in general for all their enthusiastic cheerleading over the last year and a half.
> 
> Since this is a journey fic, I’ve created [maps](http://imgur.com/a/em3Pd) for it based on the lovely one from the German edition of _The Goblin Emperor_ : [one of the entire Elflands](http://i.imgur.com/r5chZzx.jpg), and [the inset of the area where all the action takes place](http://i.imgur.com/1GYCDab.jpg). Both are low(ish)-resolution. There are no spoilers. Because I’m anal-retentive I ended up dicking around with the existing place names and symbols, making them larger or smaller depending on what we know of their canonical sizes, and anglicizing the names where necessary (e.g., “Furt von Nethen” —> “Nethen Ford”). Distances are rough estimates. Any errors are mine.

Maia shivered in his thin robes as he parceled out dried tea leaves from the jar into the big metal straining ball. He had not been surprised that Azharee — so far to the north, so deep in the Osreialhalan Mountains, its thick walls hewn from stone — would be cold in late autumn, colder even than the Untheileian. He had hardly expected thick tapestries, or any tapestries, upon the walls, either. But he would have thought that, at least, the monks would have tried to stop up the chinks in the stone with clay. Perhaps the constant drafts were reckoned a crucial ingredient of austerity.

The monk who usually tended the kitchens, an old man with a habitual kindly expression, was abed with a stomach ailment today. In his place was one named Voreva, a barrel-bodied man of about forty years whose scowl appeared permanently set into his face. Maia’s first glimpse of him reminded him of Beshelar, and the memory brought a pang with it. Beshelar, however, had never once sneered in Maia’s presence, while Voreva seemed to do so every ten minutes. Maia was glad that he could turn his back to the older monk as he worked and that they were forbidden by oath to speak.

Three weeks, two days, and seventeen hours ago, he had ordered Sheveän and Chavar to either bring Idra to him or kill him. Instead, Sheveän — eyes wide, nostrils flaring, ears flagging despite her huff of outrage — had signaled to one of her armsmen standing behind Maia. A second later Maia was in the grip of powerful hands, and a rag pungent with foul chemicals had been clapped over his mouth and nose. Then there was a long period of hazy blackness. At the end of it, he had awoken in his cell at Azharee, his long curls shorn, his long fingernails trimmed, and his signet ring gone. On the floor by his cot had lain a letter from the abbot instructing him on how he was to begin his new life of silence, labor, and prayer.

Maia knew how long it had been, despite the absence of calendars at Azharee, because each night he had scratched a tally mark into the wall before settling down under his thin coverlets to shiver himself into an exhausted sleep. Why he did so, he was not certain. He would remain in this remote stronghold where no voices were heard until the day he died. But, no matter how much his hand trembled in the cold of his cell, he could not stop it from picking up the thin little knife he had borrowed from the kitchens and dragging it down the face of the stone.

He was surprised, actually, that he remained alive — that, in fact, his throat had not been slit in the wagon he’d been dumped into and his corpse thrown off a mountainside well south of the monastery walls. Perhaps his instincts about his sister-in-law had been wrong. Or, perhaps, Sheveän’s restraint was borne of fear, for some reason, rather than of scruple. Or perhaps she was far too confident in Maia’s forged signature and in Chavar at her side.

In any event, alive Maia remained. Perhaps, in a few more weeks, he would lose the desire to mark his time. Or a few more months. Or a few more years. Or a few more decades. The days of making tea, chopping foods, sweeping floors, washing dishes, and performing other sundry tasks assigned to him with a pointing finger — along with several hours of meditation and petitions to the Lady of the Falling Stars, precious and welcome despite the cold hard press of the floor against the aching bones of his knees — would all blend together for him into one undifferentiated mass. He would forget his determination to find justice for the dead kinsmen who in life had never welcomed him. He would forget he had a half-sister who had wished to study the stars but would, instead, become the unwilling wife of a powerful and presumptuous lord. He would forget he had ever dreamed of building a bridge across the Istandaärtha.

Someday. Perhaps.

The strainer was at last full, and Maia could hear the water in the cauldron begin to seethe. He turned and walked in the direction of the kitchen hearth. Behind him, he could hear quiet footsteps, but he paid them no mind. It was not unusual for those who worked in the kitchens to get in one another’s way, especially near the hearth.

The moment he had sunk the strainer into the bubbling water, there was a noise behind him that pinned his ears tight to his skull: the resounding thud of something thick and heavy against stone, followed by a strangled sound. Maia spun around to see Voreva with his back flat to the wall, his eyes bulging as they stared downward, one hand slipping on the bloodied handle of the dagger protruding from just beneath his ribcage, and a length of fine wire dropping from the slack fingers of his other hand.

And another monk standing before him, Voreva’s blood dripping from his own hands and splattering his robe.

The newcomer, a shorter and more slender man with his hood up over his head, yanked the dagger out of Voreva with a sucking sound that made Maia’s gorge rise. The big monk’s eyes rolled upward in his head, and he toppled to the floor at the other’s feet.

Maia had opened his mouth to scream when the newcomer turned to face him. The eyes, dove-pale and wild in a fine-boned face, sent a shock of recognition through Maia like a deep crack through a fallen vase as he heard the words: “Serenity. Cellar door. _Run!”_

For all that he hadn’t run a step since boyhood, blind terror leashed Maia and hauled him toward the rear of Azharee’s main building faster than he could have pictured himself running. Csevet — _what in the name of all the gods is he doing here?_ — kept pace with him easily. Within a moment they gained the alcove where the trap door to the cellar lay. It was flung wide open.

“Down the ladder,” Csevet hissed as he began to lower himself onto the rungs. The dagger was no longer in his hand, but there was a coppery tang in the air all about him.

“We’ll be trapped in the cellar!” Maia whispered back.

Csevet looked up from his descent. Holding Maia’s eyes with his own, he said, shortly but simply, “Trust us, Serenity.”

Breathing deeply, sending up a prayer of apology to she whose sanctuary had just been profaned on his behalf, Maia obeyed.

His feet were less steady on the rungs than Csevet’s. “Pull the trap door to, Serenity,” Csevet said beneath him. “Give them an extra moment’s delay. Oh, and don’t look down.”

Maia forced himself to obey, to navigate the rungs by the feel of the wooden bars beneath his feet. “Two more,” Csevet said beneath him. One step, and then the last, onto hard-packed earth, illusive relief flooding Maia for all of a second. Then Csevet’s hand was on his elbow, pulling him toward the shadows in the rear, behind the stacks and sacks of various supplies.

At the furthest extreme of the space was a door. It stood maybe an inch ajar, and into the dry of the cellar it breathed the damp cool of deep earth. Csevet pulled Maia through it and slammed the door behind them. Maia shivered in the chill as metal clinks and clanks resounded through the darkness all around them. Then there was a scraping noise followed by a soft hiss, and Maia threw a hand over his eyes at the flare of light, scant as it was.

“We cannot tarry, Serenity,” Csevet said in the plural. Maia blinked as his eyes adjusted. He could pick out something jammed into the door’s outer lock, as well as something longer thrust through the arch of the handle. Csevet, who had bent down to pick up a large sack lying against one earthen wall, pulled a smaller sack from it. When he turned about to hand it to Maia, his jaw was rigid, his eyes still wild. He threw back the hood of his robe, revealing unadorned ears flat to his head. He’d braided his hair into a simple corona, using short, plain strips of linen for ribbons. Maia noticed too that Csevet’s fingernails, once long and lacquered, were now trimmed short and unpainted.

In the smaller sack were courier’s leathers in Maia’s size, fur hat, a thick fur cloak, leather gloves, and walking boots with woolen socks stuffed into them. Csevet, donning a similar hat he’d retrieved from the larger sack, turned his back pointedly. Maia took the cue and began to change out of his robe and the thin-soled boots that the monks wore in cold weather, shivering as he stripped, mortal fear leaving him no room for self-consciousness.

“Leave the monk’s garb on the ground, Serenity,” Csevet said. Once again, emperor obeyed secretary. Csevet let his own disguise fall so, revealing his leathers beneath, and pulled off his monk’s boots. Stooping once more, he took cloak and walking boots similar to Maia’s from the large sack and donned them quickly.

“We must run in the dark.” With a tilt of his head Csevet indicated the tunnel before them. The penumbra of the light died out a few feet into it.

“How — how far?” Maia whispered.

“Far enough.” And, with that, Csevet pursed his lips and blew out the flame. “Now.”

The blackness of the tunnel was absolute, impenetrable, seeping through Maia’s conscious mind like ink to blot out all thought. Without Csevet at his side, grabbing his forearm at points to steer him, he would have run smack into the walls over and over. He wondered how Csevet’s night vision was availing him in this utter darkness, far darker than the chamber in which Maia passed the night before his coronation, when Maia could not perceive the smallest pinhole of light anywhere.

Some long while afterward he heard Csevet pant, “Stairs. Twenty feet ahead.” They slowed their pace. Then Csevet’s hand was on Maia’s arm again, guiding him up stone steps pitted with age, and Maia thought he could feel their cold breathe into his soles even through the boots and socks. Above them, the darkness seemed to go hazy with faint light, like the horizon just before the break of day, and the air about them as they ascended dried out and went cold.

“Stop,” Csevet said. In the gloom, Maia could perceive him thrusting his arms out, throwing his full weight against an obstacle. There was a great creaking noise, and then another. Slivers of sunlight shot through the dark, and snow drifted into it. Maia, blinking again, added his own weight against whatever it was that stood in their way. He and Csevet shoved half a dozen times, each time the hindrance yielding a bit more, striping them with more light, spraying them with snow.

Then, suddenly, it gave way completely, and they were tumbling into a mound of snow choked with deadfall and live branches. Many of the latter were bethorned. Maia yelped in pain, despite himself. The breath hissed out from between Csevet’s teeth, and so did a rather rude word. “Forgive our vulgarity, Serenity.” He got to his feet and pulled Maia up to his own without asking.

“I— we need a breath,” Maia panted, leaning against the enormous upended tree bole that had been blocking the tunnel exit. He rubbed the spots where the thorns had pricked through his clothing, dislodging flakes of snow, and he shivered in the bitter cold. Csevet was shivering too, he noticed. No — not shivering. Shaking.

“Csevet?”

Csevet did not reply at first. Whereas his face had been heretofore either hard with determination or taut with fear, now it was naked in its anguish. He stared out wide-eyed into the bright white distance before them, and Maia was struck with the thought that Csevet was registering none of it at all. He thought of sharadansho silkworkers, and he shivered harder.

“Csevet?” he asked again, softly this time.

“I… we are fine, Serenity,” Csevet said with an uncharacteristic harshness. He did not seem fine. He seemed like he wanted to vomit, or cry.

The astringent voice in Maia’s mind, that which he had come to think of as Edrehasivar VII’s, asserted itself of a sudden. _He just killed a man for thee, moonwit. He’s no soldier, nor revethmaza; think’st he’d be unaffected?_

For a moment Maia wanted to cry, too. Was he so worthy, that his secretary — not any of his nohecharei, but a man neither sworn to him unto death nor trained in the deadly arts — would follow him to this remote end of the Elflands, lie his way into a holy place, spill the blood of another within, and propel Maia into the frozen wilds?

Then the voice spoke again: _Hast no other choice but to be worthy of it, just as hadst no other choice than to take the throne. He has stained his hands in blood for thee. An dost otherwise, wilt sign his death sentence — as well as thine own._

“We must be gone,” Csevet said, still patently unhappy but no longer appearing to sway on some internal precipice. “We heard no pursuers belowground, but we must assume they are coming. We should not rest easily until we have crossed the Celvazheise border.”

Maia had resigned himself to exile within his own country. Now he would be an exile in the literal sense of the word. “Is that absolutely necessary, Csevet?” he whispered.

The pale eyes were wells of sorrow again, though fixed now on Maia and not some inner abyss. “We are, Serenity, afraid that it is. You will not be entirely out of danger across the border, but you will be far safer. We know the countryside of southern Celvaz as well as we know that of the eastern Ethuveraz, and we know it much better than that of the western half. We have contacts there, too, although we will call upon as few of them as possible. We cannot be assured at the moment of all of their loyalties, nor do we wish to endanger them.”

“So,” Maia asked in the plural, “how are we to survive?”

Csevet’s mouth flattened. “For the indefinite future, Serenity, we will have to survive through a combination of rough living and seeking help, likely also menial employ. And we must walk a long way. There was no way to stable horses here until we were able to free you, nor would an Ethuverazheise horse be able to navigate the Osreialhalans well. It grieves us to put you to such rigors, especially with a harsh winter come so early. But those rigors are survivable. All couriers learn to live rough, even in winter, for the occasions when the recipient of a message cannot or will not extend hospitality to the courier. Or,” Csevet added with a strange, bitter note in his voice, “the hospitality is not to be trusted.”

There was an entire realm of shadows in that last sentence, the depths of which Maia sensed he had no right to plumb. “All right,” he said. “We… we trust you, Csevet. You have saved our life. How could we not?”

The gratitude in Csevet’s eyes was almost painful in its intensity. But Csevet checked it quickly. “Thank you, Serenity. We will do our best to continue to be worthy of that trust. But we should move on.”

***

Running was not in the offing for the moment. The terrain was high, for they were deep in the Osreialhalan Range, which spanned the entire northern border of the Ethuveraz; and the air was thin. Thank the Lady of the Stars, they appeared to be for the moment walking along the broad, flat escarpment known as the Great Plateau, which ran north from somewhere west of Nelozho to well past the Celvazheise border. But the snow had fallen thickly here and lain uncleared, and over the weeks it had sunk upon itself and compacted into layers of ice. Though the topmost layer was pitted, Maia could tell by Csevet’s deliberate steps that his secretary did not trust its friction, and in some places not its solidity, either. At least, Maia thought, the wind that was trying its best to bite through their cloaks was drifting the snow over their tracks. And their boots had been heavily waxed.

“Csevet,” he said at length. And stopped there, as he had no idea where to start.

“Yes, Serenity?” Csevet sounded as easy of breath as if he stood before Maia in the Tortoise Room, as if he were not dragging Maia across the frozen northern countryside.

“You … you must explain to us how you, not Cala Athmaza or Lieutenant Beshelar … came to us, at Azharee. They did not — they are still alive, we hope?”

For a few moments there was nothing more than the crunching of their boots on the ice. Maia’s heart seized with fear. Then Csevet said, “They are still alive.” The rush of Maia’s relief was short-lived. “They all offered to commit revethvoran. Dazhis most …floridly of the four.” Maia’s blood seethed in its veins. He wondered if any of them knew about Dazhis’s betrayal. “The Princess Sheveän ordered them instead to serve Idra, who has been crowned as Varenechibel the Fifth. She threatened them with prolonged, agonizing, and humiliating public executions if they refused. Several days after your so-called abdication was announced, we chose to disappear in their place.”

As all the long years with Setheris had taught him to do, Maia shoved the rage down, into his marrow, and snapped his attention away from it. He asked, “Would not the oath of the Athmaz’are have prevailed, in the case of the mazei?”

Csevet shook his head. “There are too few dachenmazei left since the … accident, Serenity. Cala and Dazhis Athmaza could not be easily replaced.”

“We are sure that your disappearance has raised questions,” Maia said.

“We are sure it has as well,” Csevet replied grimly. “That said, had we stayed, we might have disappeared into the Nevennamire. Or worse. Perhaps that is what is now assumed at court.”

“Would not Lord Chavar have taken you back?” Maia asked in surprise. “You would have been useful to him, if nothing else.”

“It is possible he would have, Serenity. That said, we would not have wagered on the Princess of the Untheileneise Court accepting such a decision.”

The line of Maia’s mouth went flat and hard. If Sheveän had been willing to send an assassin in monk’s robes to garrote the heir to the throne — even if she had initially hesitated — he could not imagine her dealing any more scrupulously with a lowborn secretary who had left Chavar’s service for Maia’s, no matter his utility. And it occurred to him that Chavar might not appreciate such utility to begin with. To Chavar, Csevet was an experienced courier, nothing more.

“How are the children?” Maia forced himself to ask neutrally.

“As well as can be expected,” Csevet said. “The dach’osmichen seem unaffected, other than excitement that their brother is now, technically, emperor. Prince Idra himself is terrified, to be blunt.”

“With good reason.” Maia saw no reason to conceal his anger on this point.

“Yes.” The word was so taut with fury it all but twanged like a loosed arrow.

Maia let a second go by, then asked, “How did you know about the tunnel? And why is it there to begin with?”

“Azharee was once a temple of Chevarimai, Serenity,” Csevet said. “The Chevarimaise devotees were persecuted for centuries; they built that tunnel to escape imperial raids on their temple. When the cult was finally suppressed, the monks of Cstheio reconsecrated the site as a monastery and expanded the grounds.

“Judging by the blockage that confronted us” — here Csevet used the plural — “when we emerged from it, and by how rusted the lock in the door at the cellar end was, the tunnel had not been used in a very long time, and perhaps the monks wished to keep it that way.” He shifted back to the singular. “It took us some time and effort to shift the blockage just enough that we could slip into the tunnel, and yet more of both to oil and then pick the lock that we could enter the cellar. As for how we came to know of it, Cala Athmaza’s studies included religious history. Its existence is not a closely guarded secret, but it is one of very little utility anymore, especially outside Azharee and its immediate surrounds.”

“So Cala, at least, is aware of your … mission,” Maia said.

Csevet let a few seconds of silence pass. Then he said, “Cala mentioned the tunnel in passing, in conversation with us and Lieutenant Beshelar. But we did not confide in either of them. Nor in anyone else.”

Maia stopped in his tracks to stare at him. “You took this upon yourself entirely?”

Csevet stopped, too, and regarded Maia with a coldness that, Maia perceived immediately, was not directed at him. “We do not know if we can ultimately save you, Serenity. If you and we are captured, we will be unable to betray anyone else under … questioning.”

Maia’s gorge rose again, and he swallowed hard. If they were captured, he presumed he would be killed on the spot by another like Voreva. His very existence was a threat to Sheveän’s and Chavar’s rule. But Csevet, as a source of intelligence and as a commoner, would be subject to that with which the princess had threatened the nohecharei — privately, at first, then publicly.

 _I will not let that happen,_ Maia thought as they resumed their walk, and startlement followed on the heels of the thought. He had no idea how he could prevent it. Except…

Feeling his face drain, his stomach curl in upon itself, he asked, “Have you a second blade?”

“We do,” Csevet said. After a silence that was probably no more than ten seconds but which felt like hours, he asked softly, “Have you ever… used such a thing against another person, Serenity?”

“No,” Maia said roughly, staring down at the snowy ground moving beneath his boots.

Another excruciating silence. Then even more softly, with ghosts in his voice, Csevet said, “It is a terrible thing. Not only for the one whom the blade is turned against but for the one who wields it. We would shelter you from that, Serenity.”

“We would shelter you from much worse,” Maia said, his voice tight with dread and cold with rage. He could not, would not, command the blade from Csevet. It was not his to command.

For yet another deceptively short interval, Csevet did not reply. Then he stopped, and a startled Maia with him. He dropped to one knee, grimacing at the press of ice against his shin through the leathers, and reached into the boot on the opposite foot. From it he drew a knife in a dark leather sheath, and he held it up and out to Maia, hilt first.

Maia took it from him wordlessly, removed the sheath, and blinked in the glare of the sun off the blade. It was a straight length of steel, its width unremarkable, anchored in oak that was worn smooth and dull. There were no ornate carvings, no embedded jewels, no flourishes in the metalwork. Just a keen edge, a wicked point, and a thin channel down the center.

Still kneeling, Csevet said, “We bought this knife ten years ago, Serenity, when we were fifteen. Couriers are subject to … certain dangers in their duties. Not long before, we had narrowly escaped from one such danger.” His voice took on its hard edge again. “We have kept that knife on our person ever since. We regret that it is not a weapon fashioned for the hand of an emperor.”

Maia, still staring down at the blade, said quietly, “At the moment, our resumed emperorship is far from certain. If this blade has served you well for ten years, Csevet, you could not have done better to hand us one made of silver and studded with diamonds.” His mouth twisted. “And it is not as if we have experience in using either kind.”

Csevet, taking a deep breath, rose again. “It is not as if we have much experience of that sort, either. Our primary use of it, when we were still a courier, was to carefully clean our fingernails with it in full view of possible would-be assailants while occasionally directing dark looks at them. It was an effective talisman.”

“But at Azharee…” Maia trailed off, his throat tightening.

“At Azharee, we acted without forethought, because there was no time for forethought, and because…” It was Csevet’s turn to trail off now.

“Because?” Maia echoed.

“In sooth, Serenity, until we saw that man move to loop his wire around your neck, we were entirely unsure whether we could kill another. But the moment we saw him about to do so —” Csevet’s voice went flat. “— we imagine it was rather like being a clockmaker’s automaton. We were entirely unsure whether we could have stopped of our own accord.”

Maia shivered. As he slipped the knife into his own boot, he told himself it was from the wind.

“All that said,” Csevet continued, “we were given two things to remember by an older courier who had had to defend himself with a blade a few times.”

“And those things are?”

“The first is to hold the blade close to your body, rather than out at the end of your arm, where it can be wrenched easily out of your hand. The second and far more important thing, Serenity” — Csevet’s gaze was dead level and cold — “is that, once you find yourself in the midst of a confrontation, you never, _ever_ brandish the knife unless you are fully prepared to kill with it.”

***

They walked in silence a long while after. It was broken only when Csevet stopped and took from his cloak pockets a few strips of mutton jerky, two dried apples, and a flask of very watered wine. Maia’s stomach growled of a sudden, making his face and ears heat and Csevet’s mouth twitch. He took his portion with quiet thanks. They ate briskly, tossing the apple cores to the snow for hawks or mountain cats to scavenge, and then they moved on, again in silence.

It was not a tense silence, but it was far from a companionable one. Maia’s head was whirling at this third overturning of his entire life in fewer months, his legs labored to keep up with Csevet in the bitter cold despite the advantage of his longer stride, and his lungs burned in the thin air. He could not begin to guess what was going on in Csevet’s mind. Csevet’s expression was not now merely the polite mask of an imperial secretary, but, Maia thought, a firmly closed book.

_Because that is precisely what he is to thee, hobgoblin._

Maia recalled the pained words of Cala Athmaza: _Serenity, we cannot be your friend._ But Cala’s warning had sprung from political caution. Here, in this desert of ice and wind, of Maia and Csevet and no one else for miles around, there were no politics. There was only Maia’s deep, keen awareness how little he knew of the man who walked by his side. A man who, apparently, could kill as easily as could Cala or Beshelar — and had not even realized this until today.

 _What else is there to thee that I do not know, Csevet Aisava? What else is there to thee that know’st not thyself? Who art thou —_ what _art thou, to me? For “secretary” hardly suffices to describe thy role in all that has befallen us today, does it?_

He forced himself to stop worrying at the thought. He had Csevet’s loyalty. Csevet had his trust. And, until the Bright Lady of the Stars saw fit to clear Maia’s vision, that would be enough, for it would have to be.


	2. Rishonee

So far north, so high up, and so late in the autumn, dusk came far too soon. The only grace of it was that it lingered, that the dwindling light and the stars upon the snow gave them enough light to walk by. But the wind had gathered strength, draining it from Maia. It did not help that the ground had been steadily rising beneath their feet, for Csevet had earlier turned to the west, off the plateau. Shivering in his own cloak, Csevet now said, “Not much farther, Serenity. There’s a village within the mile.”

“Are you sure?” Maia huffed, the crowns of his teeth dancing upon one another. He’d thought Edonomee, riddled with cracks and shot through with drafts, had been cold enough until he’d experienced the frigidity of the Untheileneise Court, most particularly the Untheileian. At Azharee he’d thought, _At least the Untheileian was sheltered from drafts._ But here no walls sheltered him at all.

Csevet nodded. “Smell the air; there’s woodsmoke on it.”

The insides of Maia’s nose, mouth, and throat were parchment dry by now; it took a few inhalations before he could perceive that sharp yet comforting scent floating on the wind. Within a few minutes it grew stronger. He realized he was unconsciously straining his ears for a hint of sound, but, pinioned and muffled as they were beneath the fur of the hat, it was to little avail. Before long, however, a faint glow that was not suggestive of the moon appeared on the horizon.

The village was, Csevet told Maia as they approached it from below, typical of those nestled into the sides and craters of the Osreialhalans. The high stone wall surrounding it had spearpoints embedded in its top, but the watchman at the gate waved Csevet and Maia through with a friendly smile. Beyond were about two dozen wooden cabins clustered tightly together. After an hour of walking in no light but that of Cstheio Caireizhasan, Maia’s night vision had so sharpened that he noticed the darker stripes of mud and clay daubed into the chinks between the boards. Over the cabins loomed a much larger building that, as best Maia could tell, was hewn of stone. “Their combination of othasmeire and meetinghouse,” Csevet said. There were also a few structures of intermediate size that Csevet identified as a barn, a bathhouse, and a stable, all for communal use.

“Please let us speak for the both of us, Serenity,” Csevet said as he approached the largest of the cabins, Maia following. “And, we are deeply sorry to ask, but… please, keep your head lowered, at least initially.”

A pang wrenched in Maia’s belly. _Of a certainty, I’ve practice in that,_ he thought bitterly. But once more he wrested control of the anger and shoved it back into the recesses of his mind. He could no more afford it here than he had been able to in Edonomee.

Within a moment of Csevet’s knock, the door opened to reveal a woman of middle years. A colorful kerchief covered her ears and pinned-up braids, and her pale-blue eyes were sharp in her weathered face. She did not smile. Two children clung to her skirts, peering at Csevet and Maia with wide eyes of the same hue. “Fair evening,” she said, not uncivilly but not warmly either.

“A fair evening to you too, good Osmerrem,” Csevet murmured. Maia, who had turned his eyes to the ground once he’d caught a glimpse of the woman, forced himself not to stare at Csevet. His secretary had dropped his flawless court diction for the archaic patois and the nasal twang of the Thu-Cethoreise highlands. Nor was his tone the civil yet implacable one to which Maia had become accustomed; it was not merely deferential now, but nearly wheedling. “We, my friend and I, journey to Celvaz, and we beg you the shelter of your barn for the night. Need you hands with the shovel or some task of the like, he and I would gladly lend you them.”

“Nay, there’s no need of that,” the woman said, waving a weathered hand at them. “Of either the hands or the barn. We’ve pallets enough in the house for two guests. Have you supped?”

Maia’s stomach growled again. But Csevet said, “Osmerrem, we’d not put you out—”

The woman snorted. “‘Merrem’ is fine, ’tis hardly a country manor here. And, nay, you’d not put us out; the shame would be on us for not feeding you. Milu” — she craned her head back over her shoulder — “ladle thou two bowls for these men, and lay out pallets for them.”

“Aye, Mama,” a girlish voice said.

Five minutes later they were seated at the right edge of the hearth — the place of honor for guests, Csevet would tell Maia the next day — and tucking into the fragrant contents of two heavy earthenware bowls, which brimmed with chunks of mountain goat meat, root vegetables, and dried herbs. The girl Milu, who was maybe Idra’s age, had also given them dense clots of brown bread for mopping up the broth, plus a surprisingly sweet dark ale in mugs as thick as the bowls for washing everything down. It was plain fare, but richer than what Maia had subsisted on at Azharee.

The cabin was, as Csevet had likely surmised from its size, the home of the village chieftain. He was a broad-shouldered and taciturn man by the name of Veris Rishonar, and his village, having been led by his house since time immemorial, was called Rishonee. He sat at the left edge of the hearth, having ceded his place tonight to his guests. His eldest son, somewhere between Maia and Idra in age, sat on the other side of the hearth from his father. A bit further away sat Veris’s wife Biteän, who had answered the door, and behind her the six of their progeny who were still reckoned michen. Overall the sons sat closer to the fire than the daughters, and the elder children closer than the younger. The exception was Milu, who did not sit at all but flitted back and forth refilling bowls and mugs, breaking off pieces of the loaf that sat on the table at the cabin’s rear, and occasionally taking one of the littler michen to the outhouse.

Csevet did not eat as delicately as he did at court, caviling neither to slurp from the bowl now and again nor to suck his fingers clean of broth. Maia, seeing that the family ate in the same manner, followed his lead. He blushed to hear himself make such vulgar noises, blushed harder to imagine what Setheris would say if he could see and hear Maia now. But his anxieties were far less important, he realized, than not giving their hosts cause to suspect they were not whom they’d claimed to be.

To the Rishonada, Csevet had introduced himself as Mer Zherodar and Maia as Mer Honithar. The family asked no questions of them at all. But, though nearly all of them were circumspect about it, Maia could feel their eyes drilling into him and Csevet — him especially.

As Csevet would tell him later, villages in the Osreialhalans were set so far away from major thoroughfares that they saw very few passers-through. Remote and self-sufficient as they were, such mountain hamlets did not make for profitable regular trading stops. Twice or thrice yearly, merchants who traveled to and from the Celvazheise capitol of Tefuilo set up a daylong market on the plateau to seek custom from the villages, but their horses could neither safely climb the village paths to shelter nor be left on the plateau all night, nor could wagons be hauled up the slopes. Airships did fly between the cities of the Elflands and Tefuilo, which stood on a high, broad table of land. But there was no safe mooring amid most of the peaks, and winter storms greatly curtailed airship traffic in general.

And, so far north, goblins were few to none. It was entirely possible that no one in Rishonee had ever before seen a person with so much as a drop of Barizheise blood. Thus Maia was not overly surprised to hear a small voice pipe up in the dim away from the fire: “What are you doing in Rishonee?”

Biteän turned half-around with her arm in the air; there was a soft slap, then a softer whimper. “Mind thy manners, Hithera,” she snapped.

Though Maia knew this was the most unremarkable of childhood discipline anywhere in the Elflands, his shoulders went rigid, his ears flagged, and the stew stuck momentarily in his throat. He forced himself to swallow and continue eating. He was sure his hosts would feel insulted by even a drop left in the bowl. More importantly, he was unsure when he and Csevet would next dine again.

“Your son is a curious and clever lad, Merrem Rishonaran,” Csevet said immediately. “May I bid him come to me, that I can speak to him man to man?”

Biteän snorted. “As you wish. Go, thou, and listen to what he cares to tell thee, rather than shame our house with impertinent questions.”

The boy Hithera scrambled to his feet. As he emerged into the firelight, Maia saw the lift of his ears and the delighted wideness of his eyes, though the latter were red and his nose glistened with snivel. Setheris had certainly not scrupled to knock Maia around, but many a time Maia had wished his cousin had laid into him with his hand instead of his tongue. This child was, perhaps, stung less by the slap than by the rebuke, which after all had been delivered in front of guests.

Hithera plunked himself down on the edge of the hearth next to Csevet. “Floor, lad,” his father said with the sort of quiet in his voice that one did not challenge. The boy obediently slid down to the dried rushes upon the floor, just beyond the toes of Csevet’s boots, and he did not seem chided this time. He folded his legs beneath him and looked up expectantly.

Csevet smiled down at him and patted the top of his head, taking care not to ruffle his hair and thus dislodge it from its traditional michen’s queue. “My friend and I, Hithera, have come from just outside Cetho —”

“Cetho!” Hithera exclaimed, wriggling a little. “’Tis a great city, is’t not? The city of the zhas and his court. I heard the zhas is a hobgoblin! Is that aught like an ogre?” Maia blinked hard, his hand full of sodden bread coming to a stop halfway to his mouth. Csevet’s expression was indecipherable.

“Hithera,” Veris Rishonar said more sternly. The boy subsided, looking a bit more chastened now.

Biteän, for whom Hithera was now out of reach, said with deep mortification, “Please forgive our son his thoughtless blurtings. He has ever been the hardest of our michen to school to manners, and we are not even sure he knows what a goblin is. There are not many in these parts.”

“I would not presume to undermine your lessons, Merrem, but I find the lad charming,” Csevet said with a winsome smile. “He thirsts for knowledge like an Ashedro scholar.”

Hithera beamed up at Csevet, and Maia’s heart ached at the surprise in the child’s face. There was another quiet snort from Biteän, but she did not protest, and when Maia dared raise his head he spied her lowering hers with a hint of a smile. “Aye, he’s not dull, ’tis for sure,” she said, her tone ironic.

“Now, Hithera,” Csevet said to the boy, “thou’rt not wrong entirely. Half-elf, half-goblin, the youngest son of Varenechibel, and his only heir who was not killed in the crash of the airship the _Wisdom of Choharo.”_ The word _airship_ made Hithera’s eyes widen again with excitement, but with an obvious effort he checked himself from uttering another exclamation. “But he was overthrown — know’st what that means, ‘overthrown’?” When Hithera shook his head, Csevet continued, “Other powerful folk forced him, upon threat of death, to give up his throne and retire to a monastery.”

Veris’s head came up at that, and his ears went back; so did his eldest son’s. “These tidings had not reached us,” he said sharply. “We would not have heard of the goblin zhas at all had a Celvaz-bound merchant not chanced to pass through some weeks ago seeking a place by our hearth. But before that we’d had no outsiders pass through in months, and we’d not expected any more ’til the spring thaws.”

Csevet met his eyes with a rueful look. “I am full sore to bear bad news into this gracious household, Mer Rishonar,” he said.

“Nay, we are glad to learn what happens so far away, as it will come to bear upon us sooner or latter, for good or for ill.” Veris leaned forward to spit a bit of goat gristle into the fire. “’Tis better payment for your suppers than a hand at shoveling snow, in sooth. Tell us more, an it please you. Who overthrew the goblin?”

“The Princess Sheveän, Mer Rishonar. Her husband Nemolis had been Prince of the Untheileneise Court, but he died in the airship crash. She conspired with the Lord Chancellor in this, that her son would take the throne under the Chancellor’s regency for the next two years until he reaches his majority.”

 _“An_ he reaches his majority,” Veris muttered. “Poor lad.”

“Aye,” Biteän said with a hint of anger. “We cannot blame a mother for wanting the world for her son, but it’ll do him no good an it put him in a tomb.”

“Mama,” said one of the girls, perhaps a year older than Mireän, “an it please you, why would that happen?”

Veris was the one to reply. “Because, lass, one cannot trust a man separated from the throne by only an untried youth who’s not of his line. He need not even find a skillful assassin to slay the boy, just some brute who can make it look a mishap and hold his tongue afterward. Then regent becomes emperor.” Though the cabin was cozy-warm, the daughter who had asked the question shivered, her ears lowering.

“Mer Honithar and I were wary of what unease might follow,” Csevet continued, still addressing Veris, “whether or not the Lord Chancellor might do aught so evil. There is ill feeling toward goblins in Cetho, as there is most everywhere in the Ethuveraz, and with the half-goblin zhas taking the throne it came to the fore. When he was deposed — that means the same as ‘overthrown,’ Hithera — Mer Honithar feared beatings in the street. And neither of us felt sure that, come any unrest, we’d yet have work. But I know folk in Celvaz who’ll have it for us, and it’s as safe a place as I can think of.”

“For now,” Veris said bluntly. “Let us ask you plain, Mer Zherodar: do you fear a civil war?”

Csevet lowered his head. “I do not know, Mer Rishonar. I cannot predict what will happen; that is for the gods alone to say.”

“You and Mer Honithar wear couriers’ leathers,” Veris observed. “Even at this arse-end of the Ethuveraz, where messages are never delivered, we know the saying that a courier is like a physician, with his finger ever on the pulse of his country.”

“Aye,” Csevet said, raising his head again. “But we’ve been on the road a while, Mer Rishonar, and the farther we’ve traveled, the less news of Cetho we’ve heard. And with winter come early, there are fewer riders out of the Untheileneise Court and its surrounds, especially so far north.”

Veris sighed heavily and passed a great hand over his face. “Forgive us, Mer Zherodar. You and Mer Honithar are our guests tonight, and we do not mean to accuse you of lying by either commission or omission. We are responsible to our village to be prepared for aught which might befall it, such as refugees from the south. Our anxiety to do so has made us less than gracious.”

“There is nothing to forgive, Mer Rishonar,” Csevet said deferentially, dropping his gaze. “Your hospitality has been warm and generous, and I am glad to tell you what we know, Mer Honithar and me. An it put you at ease…” He stopped, looking to Veris’s face.

“We pray you go on, Mer Zherodar,” the chieftain said.

“… I do not think that even come the worst, many would flee to the Osreialhalans, and especially not at wintertide. Those with goblin blood would go south to Barizhan, or at least to the borderlands where others of their kind live. For pure-blooded elves with suddenly no way to earn their keep, there’s the western Ethuveraz, which yet has little love for its eastern rulers and where one can scrape out a living in relative peace. They’d likely come only so far north that they could ford the Istandaärtha safely — and, again, not until spring, except those who could obtain ice-shoes or cleated boots. Otherwise, they’re safer staying where they are and scrabbling for their bread as best they can.”

Veris’s mouth twisted. “City folk, factory folk, farm folk… ever at the mercy of their betters. ’Tis a hard life here, no doubt, but in all this village’s time the high and mighty lords of the eastern Ethuveraz have vexed us very little. We thank Cstheio Caireizhasan that we understand this, and therefore we go not thirsting for knowledge in Cetho, or Ashedro, or any other place a man’s life is forfeit at the whim of a lord.”

Hithera bowed his head and fumbled with the edge of his tunic. Maia bit his lip. He ached for the boy, born to a place that would ever frustrate his hunger for learning. Setheris, at least, had troubled to school Maia, though he’d done it only out of boredom; and Chenelo, too, had imparted what she could to him before she’d died. As the son of a chieftain, Hithera might enjoy more privileges than the boys in the other cabins, but his life would yet consist only of labor, marriage, and children. All worthy things, those… but not enough, not nearly enough. And Hithera was a boy; the lot of a curious girl, Maia imagined, would be bitterer still.

Yet he could not bring himself to fault Veris or Biteän. All the opportunities of the south would avail the boy nothing were he to draw unwanted attention from the powerful, any more than the throne would avail Idra were Chavar to arrange a fatal “accident” for him. And nothing would rouse a nobleman’s itch, never far from the surface, to teach his inferiors their place like a clever boy from a little-known village who asked impertinent questions.

After Milu had cleared away all the bowls and mugs, Biteän said, “You’ll be wanting to bathe, we imagine. Not many opportunities for that out in the wilds in winter. ’Tis now the men’s time for bathing; the women’s was earlier. Taris” — she spoke to the eldest son — “show thou our guests the way to the bathhouse.”

“No need for him to go out into the cold with us,” Csevet protested. “It’s the third-largest building after the othasmeire and the barn, aye, Merrem?”

“’Tis no trouble,” Taris said, rising to his feet and grabbing a cloak off a peg. With the firelight shining strong upon him now, he looked, Maia thought, every bit Veris’s son in both face and figure. “Come with us.”

The bathhouse had a small sign of baked clay upon the door; the side turned outward featured a crudely sketched masculine figure. As Taris opened the door, heat and moisture rushed out, feeling strange against Maia’s face in the cold, dry air. There was a strong tang to it that reminded him somewhat of the vapors emitted by the Edonara.

The inside was all one tiled room with no windows, lit by several glass-sheltered candles in wall niches. There were no private alcoves for changing, only pegs on the walls all around. Near the entrance was a boot rack. Against each of the two longer walls were two rough tables, the larger piled with worn towels and the smaller with crude lumps of soap. The tub was large enough around to seat about three dozen adults on its sunken perimeter bench. Only three men sat there now, two old and one of middle years; all of them lifted their heads to regard the newcomers. “Fair evening, Taris,” the oldest said in a creaking voice.

“Fair evening, Monta,” Taris replied. “These men are passing through Rishonee on their way to Celvaz; they’re our father’s guests tonight, so make you them welcome.”

“Ah, what a wretched time of year to be abroad,” the youngest of the men commiserated. “Warm you yourselves well, fellows, while you can. The tub is spring-fed. Nice and hot, almost as many minerals as — what’s that place called? Daio?”

“Daiano,” the second-eldest said.

“Daiano. ’Tis medicine for decrepit old bones like mine.” Monta snorted at that but didn’t reply. Maia pushed away the sudden memories of his mother lying ill.

As Taris departed, Csevet removed his boots and socks, stuffed the latter into the former, and placed them in the rack. After he had hung his cloak up on a peg, he turned sharply away from Maia, his hands seeming to go to the fastenings of his leathers. Maia followed suit, turning in the opposite direction once he had shed boots, socks, and cloak. His face and ears burned with a heat that owed nothing to that emanating from the tub.

“Ah, modest city folk,” the youngest of the trio said, teasingly but not with genuine mockery. The two old men chuckled. Maia’s cheeks and ears burned hotter.

“And one of them a goblin,” Monta said. “Though if you’ll pardon our observation, you haven’t the look of one in your features.”

“Our father was an elf,” Maia said quietly, not meeting the old man’s eyes.

“Ah,” Monta said, leaving it at that. Maia wondered what he assumed, but he forced himself not to think on it. He was no longer Maia Drazhar, son of a scorned empress and scornful emperor; he was a man named Honithar, a blank slate upon which strangers could imagine what they liked.

Once naked, Maia grabbed a lump of soap, which he set down on the tiles just beyond the tub’s rim that he could ease himself into the water. He at first placed his feet on the bench to steady himself, then settled his entire body down upon it. He purposefully did not look in Csevet’s direction until, at the edge of his vision, he perceived that Csevet had done the same. Luckily, the feel of the water was marvelously distracting, not only hot but … _full,_ in a way that buoyed the body up, and almost silken.

“Never taken a mineral bath before, eh?” the middle-aged villager asked, grinning at Maia, then at Csevet.

“No, we haven’t,” Maia replied in the formal. “It’s very pleasant.”

“The same for ourself,” Csevet said, and now Maia dared a look at him. He was surprised at how muscular Csevet was, though after a sparse and lean fashion, his arms lightly corded and his breast hard and flat. He had unbraided his hair, which fell to about his mid-back; though it was yet unwashed, it shimmered white in the sconces’ light. His nipples were tiny and pink, not hard at all in the steamy air. That air had left him flushed from the tips of his ears to the bottom of his ribs, just above the waterline. Just below it, Maia could see the wavering outline of Csevet’s navel. He turned his head away.

“As we said, good for what ails you,” the middle-aged man said. Maia nodded. He picked up the soap, poured handfuls of water over various spots on his upper body with his other hand, and began to scrub. The soap was as harsh as its shape was crude, harsher even than what the monks washed with. But Maia welcomed the sting of the suds against his scalp and skin as they scoured away the sweat and grime, scoured away Azharee and the scent of blood.

The three villagers did not remain much longer in the bathhouse, as they had been there for some time. “We’ve got more wrinkles than a winter apple now,” the middle-aged one complained as he rose. “Even more wrinkles than Monta’s sac.” Maia’s face and ears burned again; the two old men seemed not to react at all. “Time to return to our house and ask our fair wife to get some of the wrinkles out for us.” The second-eldest man chuckled a little. Maia fought the urge to sink into the water above his head, but he couldn’t fight the urge to peer at Csevet out of the corner of his eye. Csevet’s head was lowered. Maia couldn’t tell if his flush was still purely from the heat, but his ears had lowered too.

“Can you fellows find your way back to Veris’s house on your own?” the second-eldest said as he rose from the tub, Monta following him. Maia purposefully did not look at their genitals, which swung flaccidly back and forth with their movements.

“Aye, ’tis not difficult to find,” Csevet said. “Please don’t stay on our behalf.” Maia felt a twist of panic in his gut. _No, please, stay,_ he forced himself not to blurt aloud. He felt even more ashamed as he imagined the middle-aged villager correctly divining Maia’s dread and taking another good-natured jab at it.

The trio dried themselves off and dressed, the middle-aged one talking the most, Monta and the second-eldest replying at intervals with a word or two. “A fair evening to you both,” the youngest of the villagers said with an insouciant wave as he and his fellows exited the bathhouse, the door cutting off the sound of their ongoing conversation.

In the silence behind them, Maia could hear the faint bubbling up of the water from the depths of the tub, the soft slosh of it against the sides — and then a quiet splash. When he looked up, he saw Csevet standing in the water, immersed to the neck, rinsing his hair and skin. Csevet’s face was relaxed, his ears high, and his pale wet hair clung to his pinkened skin everywhere it touched him. Though he did not quite smile, there was a faint curve to his lips, and his eyes seemed as soft as clouds.

Pulling his gaze away, Maia too slid off the bench and fully into the water. If it had felt delicious around his hips and legs, now it felt like the embrace of a womb. He closed his eyes, letting all of him, even the back of his head, be cradled in the feel of solidity that the minerals gave the water.

“Have a care, Serenity,” Csevet said quietly. “There is about three feet of tiled floor on each side, but the center is open to admit the pipes from the spring and to permit the tub to be drained as well.”

“Thank you, Csevet,” Maia said, his voice as much a murmur as Csevet’s had been. He let his feet sink back to the tiles. The air, warm and humid as it was, felt cool against his wet nape and back.

Csevet spoke again. “Serenity… we should return to the Rishonadeise cabin before much longer.” His head was slightly lowered, his ears set, his gaze upon the surface of the water. In spite of his words, he stayed where he was.

Maia thought he understood. He rose to his feet, then levered himself out of the tub using the bench. Once fully out of the water, he shivered, dripping freely on the tiles. Csevet’s head and gaze remained averted from him. Replacing his soap lump upon its table, Maia picked up a towel from the other table and began to dry himself. Worn as it was, it was sufficient for its task. He hung the dampened towel on a peg and began to dress again. When there were only his cloak and footwear to be put back on, he said, a little more loudly than was necessary, “We are done, Csevet.”

As he turned to walk toward the exit, he heard the sounds of Csevet rising from the water as well. Maia dried his feet once again on a towel near the door, then retrieved his boots from the rack. As he put first socks and then boots back on, he could hear the swipe of worn cotton on bare skin. He straightened, looking at the inside of the door, listening to the rustles of garments being donned, then the pad of bare feet approaching him.

Csevet reached past Maia for his own boots. His hair was back in its corona, tight and gleaming with moisture, and his expression was not so much relaxed now as mildly relieved. Maia made to reach for his cloak, but Csevet murmured, “Allow us, Serenity,” and held it out to him. Though it was no more than what an edocharis would have done, Maia felt himself blush yet again as Csevet settled the heavy fur about Maia’s shoulders.

They arrived back at the Rishonadeise cabin as Veris and the elder sons were settling down into their pallets, Biteän and the second-eldest daughter were settling the younger children into theirs, and Milu was just finishing sweeping the floor. “Bathed you well?” Biteän called out.

“Aye, Merrem,” Csevet said. “’Twas most refreshing.”

He and Maia hung their cloaks up by the door and left their boots and socks by it as well, as was the family’s practice before bed. Maia followed him toward the pair of pallets that Milu had made up by the fire. Veris, as he had sat during supper, lay the next closest to the hearth, and then the rest of his family according to sex and age.

Csevet stripped down to his linens, piling his leathers neatly by the side of his pallet, his face averted from Maia. Maia, once more, followed his lead. He eased himself under the coverlet; it was worn but thick, and it had been stored amid fragrant herbs. More herbs had been stuffed into the pillow to mitigate its faint staleness. All in all, the pallet was at least as comfortable as Maia’s creaking old bed at Edonomee; probably more so, in sooth. Certainly more than his cot at Azharee.

He had expected to remain awake for a while with his thoughts, of which there were many. But the fatigue of the day’s events and journey was his ally. Shortly before he faded from the waking world, his eyes rested upon Csevet’s face, as easy and composed in sleep as any icon of the Dreaming Lady of the Stars.

***

They said farewell to the Rishonada in the morning, clasping arms with a somber-eyed Veris and Taris and bowing profusely to a flattered Biteän. She had pressed bread, cheese, winter apples, and flasks of both ale and water upon them, despite Csevet’s protests. Maia had come to grasp that the protests were for form, not in earnest. Csevet gave Hithera one more smile and pat on the head, and then he and Maia took their leave.

After half an hour’s descent they regained the Great Plateau and continued north. The day was sparkling bright and bitter cold, though the wind had died down. Maia’s eyes hurt before long, even with the brim of the hat pulled down tightly over his brows. But he had slept better the night before than he had in nearly a month, and eaten better as well.

And he was, technically, free.

His freedom was, of course, a double-edged blade. He was not merely unbound by the walls of Azharee, or by imperial responsibility, or by Setheris, or by his own father. He was unmoored from nearly everything on earth, kin or friends, power or protection. Csevet was his sole, tenuous lifeline to the civilized world. His imagination presented him with horrible images of Csevet dead of various causes, Maia wandering the Osreialhalans friendless and starving and increasingly tired and cold. _Pull thyself together,_ the voice of Edrehasivar VII rebuked him, and he forced himself to push his fears aside as a youth might scorn the toys of his childhood.

The day’s journey was largely a quiet one, though not utterly silent. Once they spotted a white-coated mountain cat stalking up a ledge; Maia panicked, but Csevet assured him the creatures were shy of people and would not approach them. Occasionally a bird of prey would burst from an aerie and wheel far overhead against the impossibly blue sky. Csevet would identify it as hawk or falcon or some other kind. Maia had seen such birds in illustrations and, more stylized, in signet designs, but never in the wild. He marveled at their wingspans, their narrow shapes against the sky, their graceful trajectories, how silently they swooped to the snow. When the squeals of their prey tore at his heart, he reminded himself that this was how the gods had made them. Fierce as they were, the birds were innocent, hunting only for sustenance and not for sport.

Well fed and rested, and becoming accustomed to breathing mountain air and stepping carefully in the snow, Maia tired less quickly than he had the day before. Still, not long after darkness had fallen, he realized he would soon need to rest. He’d noticed that Csevet had turned them off the plateau yet again, and he kept a steady eye on the sky before them for a glint of torchlight.

No torches glinted, yet they came to another village. This one was smaller than Rishonee, its wall having all but tumbled down and no watchman in sight. Its six or seven cabins were all in poor repair, and the one communal-seeming building was about the size of Rishonee’s bathhouse. Nobody seemed to be about at all. Csevet looked about for a moment, trying to size up which cabin might belong to a chieftain or other leader, and at length picked one that, to Maia, seemed a random choice.

The woman who answered the door was no Biteän Rishonaran. She might have been the same age, but she looked far older and was far more ill-fed beneath her ragged clothes. Her greasy hair fell to her hips, unbound by ribbons or kerchief. She had not washed in some time, but it was the fumes wafting from her mouth — metheglin, and a harsh-smelling brew of it at that — that made Maia struggle not to reel backward from her, his heart pounding with unwanted associations.

“Aye?” she demanded crossly.

“A fair evening to you, good Osmerrem,” Csevet began. “We, my friend and I, journey to Celvaz, and we beg you the shelter of your—”

“Barn,” the woman said curtly, jerking her head in its direction. “There ’tis.” And she slammed the door in Csevet’s face.

“Well,” Csevet said to the door. To someone who did not know him, Maia thought, he would not have sounded nonplussed.

“We suspect the barn is preferable to her … hospitality,” Maia said drily.

“A valid suspicion.” Csevet turned in the barn’s direction, and Maia followed.

The barn was in only slightly better repair than the cabins. It smelled of animals and their ordure, but Csevet said it was cleaner than he had expected, given the condition of the woman they had just encountered. Maia, climbing the ladder to the hayloft before Csevet did, winced at the creak of the rungs beneath his boots. Coming down in the morning would be nervewracking, he thought.

The loft was piled high with straw. Once Csevet had joined Maia there, they settled into the hay, pulled off their boots and hats, and tugged their arms out of their cloaks so that they might use them as blankets. Though there were chinks in the roof that emitted drafts, their bed was a snug one all in all.

“Have we enough food left for tomorrow’s journey?” Maia asked with worry.

Csevet, who had wriggled out of his cloak with great care, now sat up, reached into its pockets, and drew forth what Maia could make out in the dim as two roundish shapes. “We have augmented our stores a bit, Serenity.”

“What are those?”

“Eggs, Serenity. We relieved a hen of them before we followed you up the ladder.”

Maia frowned. “But… they are uncooked, Csevet. Will they not make us ill?”

“It is always a risk, Serenity. But we have resorted to this many times before and have never fallen ill. This time, however, we took the precaution of wiping them down first with Merrem Rishonaran’s ale.”

Csevet pulled his dagger out from his boot — the same dagger with which he’d killed Voreva, Maia realized. He made a small hole in the end of each egg, then handed one carefully to Maia, who sat back up again. With fascination, horror, and an unnamable pang in his belly that did not seem to be hunger, Maia watched him tilt his head back and, as delicately as he could, suck the innards of the egg into his mouth and down his throat, which worked with the effort. When he brought his head back up, he did not seem to be grimacing.

“How does it taste?” Maia asked.

“Like raw egg.” There was a smile in Csevet’s voice. “We became accustomed to the taste years ago, Serenity. The texture is viscous, and the white has not much taste to it, but the yolk is savory. We could taste mountain grass in it.”

Maia felt his brows draw together. “You are teasing us, are you not?”

Csevet’s voice bore a hint of laughter this time. “If you had spent years as a courier sucking out ill-gained raw eggs, Serenity, you too would be able to tell whether the hen had dined on mountain grass, farm grass, badlands scrub, or grain.”

Gingerly, Maia tilted his own head back and sucked at the opening in his egg. He bore the slimy tastelessness of the white as it poured down his throat. The yolk was a pleasant surprise, much the same in texture but with a silken, buttery taste. It yielded no clue to him what sorts of meals the hen who laid the egg had eaten, but he did note an elusive hint of astringent brightness in the flavor. That, perhaps, was courtesy of the mountain grass.

Csevet brought out two of Biteän Rishonaran’s winter apples, a bit more bread and cheese, and the flask of ale. When they were done eating, he leaned over the hayloft’s edge and tossed the eggshells and cores to the pigs below, who set upon them with joyous snorting and snuffling. Maia felt as if he could eat considerably more, but he knew they needed to conserve their resources as long as they could. The ale, at least, was quite filling in and of itself — and, with only his light supper to buffer his blood from it, it went straight to his head.

“We are glad we did not partake deeply of it before we arrived here,” Maia said, staring at the roof of the barn. The hayloft seemed to tilt about him a little.

“It is passing strong,” Csevet agreed.

Maia opened his mouth again to say something, but instead of words, a hiccup came out. He clapped both hands over it. “Forgive us,” he said, blushing.

“Of course, Serenity.” The words were as silken and buttery as the yolk of a raw egg from a mountain hen.

Maia managed to turn his spinning head in Csevet’s direction. Csevet lay on his back under his cloak, face turned up to the roof. Maia could not make out his expression, but in what seemed like a mere moment later, Csevet was breathing as easily as he had on his pallet in the Rishonadeise cabin just before Maia had fallen asleep himself. Turning his own face upward, Maia let himself drift away into the pleasant haze formed of supper, ale, and fatigue.

***

 _The_ Wisdom of Choharo _tumbled from the sky, landing all but at Maia’s feet. The earth beneath it shook, and Osreian roared her outrage. The airship bounced off the earth of Thu-Athamar, then landed again in the crater it had formed, and once more the earth trembled and the goddess bellowed with fury. As it bounced again and began to descend for the third time—_

— Maia awoke, sat up in the hay, and felt the barn around him shake as the animals below squealed and squawked. The light coming in through the chinks in the roof seemed a bit stronger than before. Though he felt he’d been asleep for a long time, the muzziness brought on by the ale seemed with him still. Was it an earthquake? Did those happen in the Osreialhalans?

“What’s toward?” he heard Csevet murmur, half-sleepy and half-wary. Before Maia could answer, the air filled with a roar that sent their hands flying to their ears.

Csevet’s eyes went saucer-wide. _“Ogre!”_ he shouted, scrabbling for his boots. “We must leave _now,_ Serenity!”

Maia flailed blindly for his own boots; Csevet grabbed them and thrust them into his hands. Maia shod and hatted himself clumsily, then drew his cloak about himself. Csevet, who had already done the same and shouldered their traveling sack, now stood with one foot on the ladder.

There was a horrific tearing noise just above them, and it echoed painfully in the depths of Maia’s ears. Suddenly the night air was burning cold upon his face, and above him were the late stars and the glow of the earliest morning light. Another roar, louder than before, borne on a tide of hot, foul breath.

“It’s torn off the roof!” Csevet cried over the terrified racket from the animals below. He thrust his upper body forward from the ladder to grab Maia by the arm. Maia, frozen in place, looked up into an enormous, grotesque visage, its comparatively tiny red eyes glowing with a savage delight. The only thought his mind seemed to wish to produce was, _So it is not merely something in the wonder-tales, after all._

“Serenity! _Move!”_

Csevet’s desperate command broke the spell that had lashed Maia’s wrists and ankles in place. He half-crawled blindly toward the ladder, half-let Csevet haul him. Then something huge and scaly curled tight around his ankle. Terror-addled, Maia screamed — and, as something moved in a blur at the periphery of his vision, he simultaneously heard another roar and felt his ankle be released.

Csevet, before him on the ladder, was white and trembling, ears flat to his head, the killing knife in his teeth and something dripping from its point. There was a second foul odor on the air. As Csevet continued downward, Maia scrambled backward and managed to plant his feet on the topmost rung. He’d gotten three or four rungs further when the gigantic hand, ichor running from the wounded finger to sizzle in the hay, swung downward toward him.

Maia ducked and twisted away from the searching hand — and, with his momentum, the top of the ladder swung away from the loft.

Falling, Maia screamed again, and he heard Csevet scream too.


	3. Celvaz

He landed with a thump, felt a scratchiness against his downturned palms, and realized he’d been deposited on top of a bale of hay. Csevet, who’d landed right next to him on the bale, was already on his feet again. With one hand he seized his fallen blade as with the other he grabbed Maia by the hand and hauled him to his own feet. Thinking as one being, they raced for the door of the barn, Maia thanking the Lady of the Stars that the ogre stood on the opposite side of the building and the roof lay there as well. Perhaps the animals would sate its hunger, poor creatures.

They were clear of the barn and nearly back upon the path that descended to the plateau when they heard shouting. One voice, an older one. A woman’s. Shouting not in fear but in anger, and the words all slurring together.

“We must — protect her!” Maia gasped, winded from the dash, as he tried to turn back.

“No — Serenity — we must _run,”_ Csevet gritted out, pulling him toward the path. “We can’t — save her!”

“Csevet, _no_ — we cannot just let—”

Another roar drowned out Maia’s words, and then a howling scream.

Frozen in place once again, he looked up the incline to see the drunken woman in the ogre’s fist. She screamed and screamed, her terrified outbursts laced with ear-scalding profanities, as the ogre lifted her to its mouth and, with one snap of its millstone-sized teeth, bit off her head.

Maia’s stomach lurched like a ship in a storm. Csevet did not have to urge him to run again.

They tore down the path as fast as the incline and the ice and the stones and the half-light of the coming dawn would let them. They did not stop until they had regained the plateau, whereupon Maia dropped to his knees in the snow and brought up what little remained in his belly of last night’s meal.

It took him several bouts of retching before the nausea subsided. He settled back on his knees, head pounding, throat burning. The latter sensation reminded him of the ogre’s ichor, and he suppressed another retch. “Csevet?” he asked hoarsely.

“We are here, Serenity.”

Maia looked up and around. Csevet was rising to his own feet. Just beyond him was a patch of lurid green in the snow, but it did not look like vomit. _He has cleaned the blade there,_ Maia thought. Csevet was as pale as Ulis, his eyes glassy and still enormous, their pupils like pinpricks. Once more, his hands were shaking, and Maia would have vouchsafed that, once more, it was not from the cold.

“Are you all right?” Maia asked.

Csevet stared at him, his eyes focusing. “Are _you,_ Serenity?”

“For a man who has just seen someone be eaten by an ogre for the first time? We are in fine fettle.” Maia rose slowly; the bout of vomiting had left him lightheaded, and he swayed on his feet a little.

Csevet closed his eyes. “Would that it were our first time as well.”

The ache in Maia’s breast was a palpable thing. “Csevet… we are sorry.”

“No, the regret is ours,” Csevet said, his eyes snapping back open and his tone suddenly brisk. “It is not our place to burden you with such things, Serenity. Can you walk?”

Maia swallowed a trace of bile. “Give us a moment more, for our head to clear. The air will help, we think.”

“So should knowing that, barring anything else … unforeseen,” Csevet said, “we should reach the Celvazheise border before sunset.”

****

This third day’s journey was as silent as the first’s, and the silence far grimmer. Though it made his eyes and the inside of his head around them ache, Maia forced himself to stare at the blinding whiteness all about them until it became clear that it would not bleach the early morning’s horror from his mind. Csevet, for all that he made sure to inquire periodically as to how Maia was faring and parceled out the remaining food at intervals, seemed to have withdrawn somewhere deep within his own mind. His expression today was not like a closed book but like an iron fortress. Maia found himself undisturbed by this; he had neither the desire to intrude upon Csevet’s thoughts, nor the energy to rise up from the morass of his own.

The day’s saving grace was that, true to Csevet’s prediction, they reached the border as the sun was westering low. Maia had dreaded the prospect of speaking to an armsman who might or might not have been alerted to their flight by a rider out of Azharee; he was stunned to see no one and nothing obstructing their passage. There was only a sign by the wayside that said _Welcome to Celvaz_ in Ethuverazin and also in what he presumed was Celvazhin.

“Do the Celvazheisei not care who enters their country?” he asked bewilderedly, thinking of the bureaucracy that attended travelers to and from Barizhan, and the army outposts on the frontier of the Evressai Steppes. In the plural, he added, “Do _we_ not care who enters _ours?”_

“Well, the two nations _are_ at peace, Serenity,” Csevet said drily as they passed the sign. “And have been so for centuries. In any event, there is not much to protect in Celvaz. It is far more rural than the Ethuveraz, far colder, far more mountainous, far more sparsely populated — and far poorer. Tefuilo is about the size of a western Ethuveraz factory town, with only minimally more culture. Celvaz has very few true towns, mostly villages the size of Rishonee, give or take a few cabins, and a handful of noble estates.”

“So it is not good for farming … but,” Maia wondered, “is there not wealth to be mined from the mountains?”

“There is,” Csevet said. “But most of the mining is done by individual prospectors on the surfaces of slopes. The mountains are riddled with caves, many inhabitable, and those who live in them have the rights to whatever minerals can be found within. A similar law holds on the Ethuverazheise side of the border.”

“People live in the caves?” Maia asked in disbelief.

“Yes, Serenity. Some of them have been inhabited for generations. As for other obstacles to large-scale mining, at such latitudes and elevations the winters begin early and end late, which makes the rock harder to penetrate, water more difficult to pump, and working conditions deadlier for miners. And, as if all that were not enough, there is the periodic danger of… the sort you and we have lately escaped.” Maia shuddered.

“Migrations of Celvazheisei into the Ethuveraz,” Csevet continued, “have never amounted to great numbers. The Osreialhalaneisei on both sides of the border treasure their forefathers’ ways, as we saw of Veris Rishonar. If one is accustomed to the rigors and privations of that life, one can thrive well enough in peace and quiet. It is not a life we would choose, ourself, but we can understand its attraction.”

Maia thought of that terrible, traitorous moment when he had stood before Sheveän and Chavar and imagined that Azharee would not be so bad, after all, before he had coldly grasped that Sheveän would ultimately not have granted him even such a life as that. He himself was not of the constitution or upbringing to carve an existence for himself out of mountain rock… but he, too, had no question why others would prefer it to town or farm.

At length, Csevet once again led him off the plateau. This time they walked not uphill toward a village set into a high hollow, but downhill. After perhaps half an hour of threading their way through valleys and alongside frozen streams, they approached a spot near the base of a small peak. A low shelf of rock protruded outward from it some six feet above the ground. As they drew closer, Maia saw that what had seemed yet another slab of rock beyond and beneath the projection was in fact a heavy door, squared off perfectly and painted to match its surrounds.

“The occupant of this cave is an old friend of ours,” Csevet said, “whom we came to know when he was still overseeing the care of the imperial gardens. He returned home to Celvaz and found employment. We have kept in sporadic touch with him over the years.”

“What will you tell him… of us?” Maia asked, feeling anxiety begin to gnaw in his gut again.

“We will tell him your name is Bera Honithar. As for your background…” Csevet was silent for a moment as they continued to walk. “Forgive the question, Serenity, but … are you able to perform any sort of manual labor? We ask not of your willingness but of your experience and skill.”

Maia swallowed. “None, we fear.” He never would have been permitted to do any such thing, not even by Setheris, who might not have esteemed him but who certainly esteemed a bright line between gentry and servants. Though he knew that no shame attached to not knowing something, no matter how simple, which he could never have had the opportunity to learn, his face and ears burned all the same.

“Then, Serenity, you shall be a low-ranked courtier who befriended us and who fled with us from the chaos of the Untheileneise Court after … after Edrehasivar was deposed. You wear a set of leathers we obtained for you, that you could bear up in the cold and seem unremarkable. But an our friend recognize the stamp of the Drazhada in your eyes and features…” He trailed off.

“An imperial bastard?” Maia asked tightly.

“We… need not say it explicitly,” Csevet said, refusing to meet Maia’s eyes with his own. “He may assume. If he asks us, we will aver it, though we will do so with delicacy. We will ask him for a safe place to stay, and … again, Serenity, we are ever so sorry to put you to this — the opportunity to earn some money through labor.”

Maia laughed, the bitterness in his own voice surprising him. “At Azharee, we were put to sweeping the floors and washing the dishes. We have not yet shoveled horse dung, but perhaps only because the monks deemed us too spindly to wield a shovel. An your friend wish that we shovel it, we are not too delicate for it. Nor can we protest the prospect of being taken for the unwanted result of Drazhadeise coition, for it is hardly far from the truth.”

Csevet’s mouth flattened. Maia immediately regretted giving voice to his anger. Csevet had gone so very, very far beyond the call of duty for him. He should not be subjected to hearing his own emperor feel sorry for himself.

“Forgive us,” Maia muttered.

“There is nothing to forgive, Serenity,” Csevet said, with an excess of mildness that Maia had become too familiar with over the last few months to feel assured by.

When they drew up to the door, Csevet rapped heavily upon it: three knocks, in moderately paced succession. After the third he shook out his hand, but he took only a moment’s pause before he repeated the three raps, then chafed that hand in the other one.

A moment later the door swung slowly open, revealing a tall, thickly built man with with small, flat, rounded ears. His hair was as orange-red as goblin eyes, and so was his beard, which bristled and flowed in a manner seldom seen in the Elflands. He blinked at the visitors before him and, with an air of disbelief and in a decidedly non-Ethuverazheise accent, asked, “… Csevet?”

Csevet grinned. The man uttered joyous words in a language thoroughly strange to Maia’s ears — Celvazhin, presumably — and caught Csevet up in a tight embrace that made him gasp for air but did not dislodge his smile. He then put Csevet down and aimed at him a volley of new words, obviously questions.

Csevet replied in the same tongue, but his tone shortly lost the pleasure of the welcome and became more subdued, and his expression grew solemn. Maia could pick out the handful of Ethuverazhin in his speech: _Edrehasivar, Varenechibel, Sheveän, Chavar._ The man’s ears could not give away his mood, but his mouth grew tight and his pale-blue eyes narrowed. At one point Csevet turned to gesture at Maia, and Maia heard the name _Bera Honithar._ The man nodded in Maia’s direction, his expression polite, and Maia returned the acknowledgment before the _Cel_ turned his attention back to Csevet. After another minute’s exchange he began to make gestures ushering both Csevet and Maia into his abode.

Though the short outer vestibule of the cave house shielded them from the wind, it was not warm, and it was damp. Maia felt for a moment he were back in the tunnel that led from Azharee to the Great Plateau. After they had left their boots and outerwear in the vestibule, Maia followed Csevet and their host further within, and he was relieved to find the air grew warmer and drier as they continued. The hallway terminated in a parlor of moderate size. It was furnished with couches and chairs whose wood was old and gouged, their upholstery rough old leather full of stuffing, as well as several battered wooden tables. An oil lamp burned atop one of the latter, casting the entire room in a warm, cheerful light. At the far end it seemed that the hallway resumed to lead occupants into further chambers.

The man then turned to Maia and bowed. “Mer Honithar,” he said, his Ethuverazhin quite good despite a heavy accent. “I am Foduama sen Moruga, and you are welcome in my home.”

Maia fidgeted. “I am grateful for your hospitality, Mer sen Moruga, but I am fine with being addressed as ‘Bera.’ And as ‘thou.’”

Foduama laughed, and the sound echoed all about the parlor. “Well, then, ‘thou’ thou shalt be! Especially if I find thee and Csevet employment; gardeners and shit shovelers don’t tend to stand on formality. And, please, call me Foduama. I was never one for calling myself in the formal, either. If I may beg thy pardon, elves and goblins are perplexingly formal peoples.”

Maia smiled weakly. “I suppose.”

“And please be at ease — sit, or stretch thee out on a couch if likest. Thou as well, Csevet.” Then he called out a guttural syllable toward the hallway at the rear, and added, “Fetch us thou some tea, while the kettle’s still hot!”

From whatever room lay at the other end of that corridor, Maia could hear faint noises. They grew in volume, suddenly, and he realized that what he heard was shuffling and snorting. When the bringer of the tea emerged into the parlor, he understood.

Just as the lands far to the south had their lion-folk, those far to the north, beyond the Osreialhalans, had their bear-folk. Others seldom if ever saw them, Maia had heard, even in the few modest cities of Celvaz; they were a shy people who preferred their vast frozen flatlands and low, cave-riddled hills to villages and farms. Csevet would later explain to Maia that the Celvazheisei did not generally encourage otherwise, considering the bear-folk to be ugly and coarse — notwithstanding, Csevet would add with a wry expression, that they themselves were in turn thought of as plain and lumpish by the Ethuverazheisei.

The bear-woman who had entered with a tray of tea was not, strictly speaking, unpleasant to look upon. But her round face was thick with fur, just as her bare and heavily clawed hands and feet were. She wore a loose-fitting gown, probably more to meet local standards of modesty than for warmth. She approached Foduama and proffered the tray with a handful of guttural syllables. His servant, Maia guessed.

To Maia’s great surprise, Foduama leant forward and kissed her on her furry cheek. She smiled like any other sort of folk would, her buttonlike black eyes lighting up and her small furry ears twitching. As he took the tray from her, he repeated the guttural word that he’d called out to her, then uttered a sentence in Celvazhin that included _Csevet Aisava,_ _Cetho,_ and _Bera Honithar._ Finally he switched to Ethuverazhin: “Csevet, Bera, this is my good wife Khram. I beg you both have patience with her, as she does not understand Ethuverazhin at all, and in any case her kind are not fashioned to speak either your tongue or mine very well.”

Csevet bowed to Khram and, in an ingratiating tone, said a few words of Celvazhin. She grunted in reply, and though Maia could not be sure he thought her tone was appreciative. He, too, bowed to her, and said, “Osmerrem.” He heard Csevet say something in Celvazhin again, including the few words he’d spoken before; and he presumed that Csevet was translating _Osmerrem_ into Celvazhin.

Khram uttered a few grunting syllables that, a second or two afterward, registered to Maia as probable Celvazhin. “She says ‘welcome,’ Bera,” Csevet said in a low tone.

“Many thanks,” Maia said, and for the first time in weeks he felt his face open up in a genuine smile.

It was, in sooth, the most relaxed evening he could remember having spent since before his mother had fallen ill. There was no need to run through the next day’s schedule or a backlog of correspondence with Csevet. Nor was there any need to hide from one such as Setheris. It was just the four of them, sitting in the parlor with their plates in their laps or on the little tables — the kitchen was too small to seat more than two — supping on wild grouse stewed in rye liquor with winter pears, shallots, and herbs. Khram had made enough for Foduama and herself for three days, so there was plenty for all of them. Her presentation of the dish was rather less artistic than Dachensol Ebremis’s would have been, but Maia’s palate found no fault with it. She, Foduama, and Csevet sipped from mugs of barley beer, a beverage Maia had never tasted before and found too bitter for his taste; he opted for honeyed rosehip tea instead.

Csevet and Foduama did most of the talking, largely of their respective paths in life since they’d parted company, as well as reminiscences of those they’d known in common. Out of courtesy to both Khram and Maia, they switched back and forth frequently between Ethuverazhin and Celvazhin, and sometimes they repeated a word or phrase in both languages. Csevet would give Maia an intent look when he did this. Maia understood: he would be called upon to speak Celvazhin for the indefinite future, and though he could not hope to pick up much of it in one evening — it sounded very different from Ethuverazhin or Barizhin — it would behoove him to accustom himself to its rhythms.

Once in a while Foduama sought to include Maia in the conversation. But his questions were light and circumspect, about such things as Maia’s impressions of Celvaz so far, or his opinion of Khram’s cooking. Maia’s sense was that, as Csevet had predicted, their host had made his own assumptions about Maia’s background, and that Csevet had not yet been called upon to confirm or deny them.

“So,” Foduama said in Ethuverazhin, well into the evening, after Khram had cleared all the plates and conversation had begun to lull. “I work at Parugo, the summer estate of the Count Tsaura, which is about three miles to the west.”

“Surely the count wouldn’t be at his summer estate now?” Csevet asked.

“Of course not; he and the countess are at his townhouse in Tefuilo. But he keeps a skeleton crew on the estate from the autumn to the spring equinox. It’s a large manor that must be kept clean and well repaired, and snow and ice removed to prevent additional repairs. I oversee the greenhouse, to which the flowers, herbs, and topiary are moved before the first frost; they’re replanted outdoors after the last one.”

“Is there work for — for me and Csevet?” Maia asked cautiously. “And will the count mind thee hiring new hands?”

Foduama waved his hand in the air. “I’ve tended his gardens for years. He’s a reasonable man and he trusts me not to waste his gold. As for work, a great manor is never at a loss for tasks to be done. I’m always pulling a lad into the greenhouse to help with this or that. The two of you would free them up for other things. With all the storms we see there’s always shoveling to be done, and ice to be picked clear from walkways, roofs, and pipes. And in winter the bronchine and the other fevers come and go. We keep as clean as possible to ward it off. The crew bathes nightly, save for me — I’ll not ride home each night in those winds with my hair and beard wet, so for me it’s a weekly full bath and the washstand and flannel in between. Still, there’s usually always one lad or lass laid out in the sickroom at any given time, and so the tasks pile up. Luckily the cook knows her simples, and come the worst a lad can ride into the village and fetch the doctor out to Parugo.”

For all the privations of Isvaroë and Edonomee, Maia himself had seldom been ill in his life. At the estate, he hoped, his fortunate constitution would remain so. He noted that Csevet had shivered at the word _bronchine,_ but surely any young man or woman who’d ridden for years as a courier would be as hardy as Maia was. Had his secretary lost loved ones to the short but brutal illness?

“But,” Foduama said, eyeing both Maia and Csevet critically. “Before I bring you to Parugo, you must both crop your hair. Otherwise questions will be asked. Bera, thine isn’t terribly long, just needs a spot of trimming. Csevet, those braids will have to go in their entirety.” Khram grunted a few words of Celvazhin, and Foduama added, “Khram says she’d be be glad to do it for you both.”

Maia, thinking of sharp and heavy claws raking his scalp, cringed. Foduama quickly added, “Ah, she’s very gentle, Bera; she trims my hair and beard all the time.”

“An the lady Khram will forgive me,” Maia said politely, “I would be more than happy to cut Csevet’s hair for him. Csevet, may’st trim mine in return.”

Csevet, whose throat was working, spun his head from Khram to Maia. “Bera, hast cut anyone else’s hair before?”

“It can’t be so difficult, can it?” Maia said, ducking the question. “And we’re to be greenhouse workers, not palace servants; surely it doesn’t matter an the cut be a bit rough?”

Csevet closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Foduama directed a withering look at him. “Thou vain little popinjay, thou’st already trimmed thy precious nails, thou’lt be wearing workman’s garb for a while, and there are no pomades nor tashin sticks in the servants’ bathing chambers at Parugo. Wouldst look passing strange, sporting those locks there.” His voice took on a dark note that Maia could not decipher. “And… well, I’ve a lad or two who might remark upon it, shall I say.”

“All right,” Csevet said, his face slightly paler than usual. “Bera, may’st cut my hair for me, and I’ll trim thine.”

Foduama turned to Khram. “Fetch them what they need, my dear.” Khram made another guttural noise and vanished into the rear of the dwelling again. A moment later she returned with an old towel, a pair of shears, a hand mirror, and a broom. She leaned the broom against the wall and set the other things down on a table. Then Foduama rose and put his arm about her waist. “Many thanks. And now, we shall leave them to their task.”

“You needn’t leave,” Maia protested. “We’re cutting one another’s hair, not …” He stopped short, uncertain as to what he’d meant his next words to be, and blushed. He dared not look at Csevet.

“Aye, meaning it’ll be duller to watch than paint drying on a wall. And I am sure it won’t steady thy hand, nor Csevet’s, to have two pairs of eyes on you. Khram and I shall be in the kitchen until it is done.” And, with that, Foduama steered Khram into the rear hallway with a hand on the small of her back.

There was a long moment of silence in the parlor. Maia still dared not look at Csevet. Finally, Csevet’s quiet, tentative voice came: “Have you ever cut another’s hair before, Serenity?”

Maia, taking a deep breath, said with equal quietness: “If I am not to be discovered inadvertently, wouldst do well to address me in the informal, and as ‘Bera,’ henceforth in all circumstances. Thy friend may not be as out of earshot as believ’st, and his wife’s hearing would certainly be far sharper than that of an elf or a goblin, never mind that of a _Cel._ We” — here he reverted to the plural — “must become accustomed to it in any case.” He paused. “And, no, I’ve never cut another’s hair before.”

There was another silence, though not as long as that which had preceded it. Then Csevet said, almost inaudibly, “It may be beneficial an… an I trim y— an I trim thy hair first. Bera.” Maia could hear him swallow, though it was faint, and then Csevet’s next words were a bit clearer, a bit stronger. “It would give… thee an idea of how it is done.”

“A good idea,” Maia agreed, rising from the couch. His edocharei had always arranged his hair standing behind him while he sat in a chair, and the same had held for his mother, and later Kevo, trimming away his boyhood snarls. He found a straight-backed chair against the wall and began to move it forward, so that Csevet would have room to stand behind it.

“No, let—” Csevet broke off, catching himself, and blushed to the tips of his ears.

Maia caught his eye and felt his cheeks and ears begin to heat as well. Then he could not help but chuckle. “Hast proven my point, that we both need… practice.” _In our new roles,_ he thought, but, mindful of how he himself had just warned Csevet, he waved his hand loosely to convey the point.

Csevet smiled. “True. Seat thyself… Bera.”

His hands were as deft and gentle tucking the towel into the collar of Maia’s tunic as they were in all other things. Maia found himself staring at Csevet’s fingernails, shorn close to the flesh, naked of lacquer. They looked bereft to him. He recalled how, a few moments before, Csevet had reacted with dread to the prospect of his own hair being cut. Maia imagined him before he had set out north, in his chamber with a pair of nail scissors, something within him cringing and crying out as each pearly-green length of nail fell to a towel laid out on his bed.

Then Csevet picked up the shears. He moved to stand behind Maia, out of his sight. Maia caught his breath at the feel of Csevet’s warm left hand sliding into his hair. It was, as Foduama had said, still quite short, but in the near-month since he had been taken from court it had grown out considerably. With a gentle tug, Csevet drew one nascent mass of curls off to one side of the part in Maia’s hair. There was the odd tension of it being flattened between forefinger and middle finger, and the shears hissed softly. That side of Maia’s head felt oddly light, if not as much as his entire head had when he had first awoken in his monastery cell. The towel, his sleeve, and the floor beneath them were strewn with shiny blackness. Maia swallowed, and he found his eyes stinging.

“The first cut is always the hardest,” Csevet said behind him. His voice was soft and utterly neutral. Maia wondered if he spoke of his own hair, or of his nails. It would not have been that intimate a question in their circumstances, yet something in Maia resisted his asking.

Csevet’s fingers moved through Maia’s hair several times more, warm fingerpads rough against his scalp, the flat of his hand still in contact with it as he straightened out another cluster of locks for the shears. _Snip, snip._ The fall of hair as silent as snow, the unnatural sensation of lightness where it had been. Csevet’s fingers gently lifting Maia’s drooping ears out of the way, and something unnamable but near-tangible buzzing between Csevet’s skin and his own. Not long after, the flat of Csevet’s palm on Maia’s scalp, that he could slot random tufts between his fingers and trim them down. The whisk of Csevet’s fingers through what remained as he shook the loose hairs away.

And, at last, Csevet’s quiet “I have finished,” and a mild pressure against Maia’s shoulder as Csevet wiped the shears on the towel. Maia, his scalp prickling, took up the hand mirror and regarded the stranger therein.

As a tiny child, he’d peered into his mother’s mirror at Isvaroë and seen his own face for the first time, framed in little ebony curls. As he had grown, she, then he himself, had pulled his hair back into a michen’s queue. Goblin hair being less amenable to constraints than elven hair, a few curls had always slipped loose from it to cluster about his temples.

The six-odd inches of hair Csevet had left all over Maia’s scalp was not exactly straight, but neither was it long enough for ringlets. All the times Setheris had called him an ugly hobgoblin with ugly hair came back to Maia unbidden. He wondered if, for all his cousin’s insistence on courtly propriety, Setheris would have preferred him with a servant’s crop — or a monk’s — instead.

He wondered, too, how Csevet thought he looked now, but he bit back the thought along with the bitter laughter that was welling up in him. Why did it matter? He was no longer an emperor. He was not even a courtier. He was a half-breed refugee in a strange land who’d be shoveling snow and dung for the indefinite future. And Cstheio Caireizhasan help him if anyone at Parugo thought he might be something more.

“Wilt do,” he heard Csevet say quietly. When he turned his head he saw Csevet regarding him with a strangely soft look.

Maia felt his face and ears heat again. He lowered his head and cleared his throat. “Shall I cut thy hair?” he asked, the words coming out more gruffly than he’d intended.

“Yes,” Csevet said, his tone unchanged. “Please.”

Maia rose, removed the towel from his neck, and shook it out onto the floor. Then he draped it over the arm of the chair and took up the broom, making an effort to push the fallen tresses off to one side so no one would tread on them and track them throughout the house. When he looked up again, Csevet was seated. His ears were at half-mast, his shoulders rising to meet them, his mouth a flat line, his eyes cast down.

Maia rested the broom against the wall again and stood behind the chair. His heart was hammering, and his mouth tasted of ashes. Silently he berated himself for a moonwit, reacting so senselessly to the prospect of a necessary, and ultimately minor, thing. Hair, after all, grew back. But the idea of shearing Csevet’s … Maia thought of him in the bathhouse in Rishonee, his eyes and mouth soft with relaxation, his long, wet tresses clinging to his bare pink skin like a lover…

 _Stop this woolgathering,_ said the voice of Edrehasivar VII. _Mind the task before thee. First things first: the towel._

Yes. The towel. Maia took it up again and began to tuck it around Csevet’s slender neck, working one edge under Csevet’s collar as Csevet had done for him earlier. As his fingertips brushed Csevet’s skin, Csevet shuddered. The buzzing sensation returned. Maia swallowed again. “Csevet… it will go more easily an art not so tense.”

“I know,” Csevet said huskily, and something in his voice swept over Maia’s skin like silk over glass. Then he took an audibly deep breath and let it out, little by little. His shoulders sagged, and his head tilted further back. His ears did not rise, but, Maia, thought, perhaps that was too much to expect. Nor did he blame Csevet for not correcting their set.

 _Next: unbraid his hair._ Maia slid his fingers around one of the little linen strips with which Csevet had secured his braids. He had not anticipated untying them to be difficult, but they had grown stiff with grime and sweat, and working the knots out proved impossible. He took up the shears and slit them, one by one: first those that joined the braids to one another in the corona, then those around each individual plait. Soon they lay on the floor, atop a few strands of black hair that the broom had missed.

Csevet’s hair fell in a thick, silken curtain over the back of the chair. It occurred to Maia that he had never touched elven hair before, had in fact not touched the hair of any other person since his mother died. Elven hair was far finer than goblin hair, even half-goblin hair. Csevet having washed his two nights before, it was neither flyaway nor overly greasy. In it Maia could still smell the harsh soap of the Rishoneisei, though there was fresh sweat in the mixture too. The combination was not unpleasant. Tentatively, he began to palm the fall of Csevet’s hair, judging its weight, studiously not thinking about how soft it felt.

“The most important thing,” Csevet said quietly, “is to make sure it’s even all around when art done. I’d fain have thee not clip all of it off, but an one side be longer than the other, thou must shear the excess length, even if leav’st me with no hair at all.”

Maia nodded, then realized Csevet could not see him nod. “I’ll do my best,” he said gravely, swearing to himself he would not end up having to clip Csevet’s scalp bare.

The first cut was, indeed, the hardest: the cut straight across that shimmering white cascade just beneath the nape of Csevet’s neck. With most of that weight off Csevet’s head, Maia reasoned, he could more easily shape what remained as he trimmed it. The shears were halfway across when Csevet flinched.

“Art all right? Did I nick thee?” Maia asked, and though he kept his voice low, fear spiked its pitch.

“I… no. The steel touched my neck. It’s cold. That’s all,” Csevet said softly, far too softly, and then cleared his throat. Maia, his own throat tightening, continued to cut across until his toes were draped with fine white hair.

Though the subsequent cuts brought with them the need for Maia to slide his fingers into Csevet’s hair and against his scalp, they also brought with them a boon: the need to concentrate. Maia focused on symmetry, and on the angles at which he held his hands, and on how tightly he closed the blades of the shears. He did not at any point become _unaware_ of how Csevet’s hair smelled, or how smoothly it glided through his fingers, or the magnolia pink suffusing Csevet’s ears to the tips or his soft breathing that hitched every now and again. But all that became background to his anxiety that, after all Csevet had done for him, Maia not turn him out like a street urchin.

At last, he thought, the rear view of Csevet’s head looked… presentable. Perhaps not up to the standards of Alcethmeret servants. But the ends of his hair seemed even enough to Maia, and there was certainly plenty of it left. Enough for one to slide one’s fingers into it and gently curl it around them… Maia cleared his throat, stepped around to the front of the chair, and with his fingertips under Csevet’s chin gently lifted his head. He eyed how the hair fell on either side of Csevet’s face, resolutely not looking Csevet in the eye. But then Csevet’s eyelashes fluttered several times, and when his pale eyes pierced Maia to the heart with their anxiety, Maia could not but meet them.

“Thou look’st fine,” he said, and meant it.

Csevet blushed and bit his lip.

“Wouldst like the mirror?”

“I … believe I shan’t look. Not just yet,” Csevet said in a small, small voice.

“Csevet?” Maia asked, alarmed.

“I — I’m fine, S— Bera,” Csevet said with uncharacteristic harshness. He whipped the towel out from under his collar and, rising, shook it out onto the floor. “I’ll take the broom,” he said, his voice having recovered its modulation.

“Please, let me finish the task,” Maia protested quietly. “Might’st call Foduama and Khram back in the parlor instead?”

Csevet nodded, his face shuttered to Maia again. Maia watched him begin to walk down the rear hallway, then turned his attention to the floor, pushing elven hair up against goblin hair until it was all one tidy pile of black and white.


	4. Parugo

They slept on separate couches in the parlor, under hand-knitted blankets. Foduama and Khram awoke them well before daybreak, handing them mugs of strong black tea. Khram had placed a sweetroot into each mug for stirring as well as sweetening purposes. After two sips, the mug rattled in Maia’s hands.

“Something to offset it a bit in thy belly,” Foduama said as Khram brought heaping plates in for them: gingered sausage, coddled eggs, and a hot slaw made from root vegetables, all of it fried or sautéed in butter made from goat’s milk. Though Maia’s mouth watered at the aroma, his stomach balked at the sight of so much heavy food.

“Fret not an canst not eat all of it just now, Bera,” Foduama said, seeing his expression. “Thou and Csevet have been eating sparely, I imagine. We’ll take what remains with us in a pail and set it in the snow, and you can finish it for luncheon.”

“Unless a fox or weasel set its eye on it before luncheon,” Csevet said.

“That’s why the pail has a latching lid,” Foduama replied through a mouthful of breakfast.

Maia had begun to pick at his food judiciously. Delicious as it was, he had not eaten half of it before he felt it wise to set his plate aside. He noticed that Csevet, too, left more than half his plate untouched.

Foduama, by contrast, cleaned his own plate completely. He emptied both Maia’s and Csevet’s into the pail in question and latched it. “I’ll have to ride out to Parugo and fetch back two extra ponies.”

“Er… I don’t know how to ride,” Maia said, feeling his ears lower and the blood staining his face.

Foduama’s brows quirked upward, but all he said was, “I’ll fetch just the one pony, then. Canst ride pillion behind Csevet. I should be back within the hour.” And before the bottom had dropped completely out of Maia’s brimming stomach, host and pail had disappeared into the outer vestibule.

“Hast never ridden before, Bera?” Csevet asked, looking genuinely surprised.

Maia shook his head and lowered his gaze from Csevet’s inquisitive eyes. “No. I have never had the opportunity to learn.” He felt … not simply a bumpkin, for country folk rode even more than city folk did. He felt an utter simpleton.

“Ah,” Csevet said. “Well, as Foduama said, canst ride seated behind me. The ponies here are sturdy and placid things, and I’ve known how to sit a horse since mine eighth summer.”

Surprise forced Maia’s head back up. “Surely they don’t train couriers so young?”

Csevet blinked, then loosed a soft peal of laughter. “Ah, no, thou misunderstand’st. As a young lad I did odd jobs. Errand running, mostly. Sometimes I worked for an ostler, and when I was old enough he taught me to ride that I could run longer errands for him. Couriers may begin their training at the age of twelve, so I’d an advantage there already.”

“So young,” Maia repeated, this time his voice wondering rather than startled.

A line appeared between Csevet’s eyes. “It’s not unusual,” he said. “The sons and a few daughters of merchants or skilled craftsmen might be schooled until age sixteen or seventeen, with a handful matriculating at Ashedro along with the children of nobles. But most michen must help their parents put food on the table and a roof over their heads. My father died of the black fever when I was not quite six, and I’m the third child of five.”

“I’m sorry, Csevet,” Maia said, and he could not tell where in his words sympathy for Csevet’s circumstances ended and apology for his own oblivious idiocy began.

Csevet managed a weak smile. “Meant’st well. It is … what it is, I suppose.”

Khram interrupted the impending awkward silence by shuffling into the parlor. Csevet looked up at her with a smile whose brilliance spoke of relief and spoke entreatingly in Celvazhin. Khram gave a growl of dismissal and waved a furry hand, but Csevet leapt to his feet and began to gather up the dishes. Maia inferred he had offered his help, she had declined, and he had insisted. He himself began to rise, but Csevet said in Ethuverazhin, “Nay, Bera, sit; the kitchen is cramped, and Khram and I will barely keep from jostling one another.” Feeling as though he’d once more put his foot into his mouth, Maia handed him his own plate and fork. Csevet and Khram vanished down the back hallway, he pattering in too-bright Celvazhin, she replying with grunts.

Maia considered meditating until Foduama returned, but a pair of dusty tomes that sat atop one battered table caught his eye, and he rose to inspect them. They had been published in Celvazhin. One book was illustrated with plants, mainly those from which herbs were harvested, and included a dozen color plates at its center; the typesetting of one section suggested recipes for tisanes and other cures. The other book contained copious black-and-white engravings of livestock being tethered, broken in, doctored to, neutered, or slaughtered. Those last two topics of illustration made the close-shorn hair on Maia’s head and nape stand on end. Then he thought of the gingered sausage in his belly. _Such delicacy will serve thee ill in the near future,_ the voice of Edrehasivar VII chided him, and, with a rueful smile, Maia acknowledged the truth in that.

He was still by the table peering at the illustrations when he heard the distant slam of the outside door. He turned about, and Foduama emerged from the vestibule to stand at the threshold of the parlor, so he’d not track the snow on his boots into it. His face was red with cold. “Where’s Csevet? The ponies are tied up outside.”

The ponies were as sturdy as Csevet had said and rather shorter than ordinary horses. They were also shaggy, which was not a word Maia had ever thought to apply to an equine before. But he imagined such dense, curly coats were a boon in this climate.

“Let me give thee a hand up, Bera,” Foduama said as Csevet swung into the saddle on one of the little beasts. Before Maia could object, Foduama was kneeling before him, making a step of his hands, and Csevet was reaching down for Maia’s hand. Awkwardly, he managed to get up onto the pony’s back. “How do I ride… ” he began, having forgotten what the word for riding behind someone was.

“By holding onto me,” Csevet said, a hint of amusement in his voice. Meanwhile, Foduama leapt back onto his own mount with, to Maia, surprising grace for his size. Neither pony seemed fazed by its burden at all. Foduama tugged at the reins and made clicking noises with his tongue while touching his heels to the animal’s side. It began to move forward; the lid of the luncheon pail, which had been strapped to its hindquarters, rattled a bit. Csevet duplicated Foduama’s sounds and movements, and the pony beneath him and Maia began to follow the first.

Maia, unaccustomed to the jolt, uttered a small yelp and flung his arms around Csevet in panic. Csevet’s amusement came through his voice more clearly now: “Don’t panic, art not like to fall off a beast like this one. Just…” His tone changed, became softer, lighter. “… hold tight to me, Bera.”

Holding tight to Csevet was not in any way difficult to do. Nor was it a challenge to remain seated, as Csevet had promised him. The challenge, as it turned out, was something he had not expected.

Between his legs pressed animal flesh, warm and solid, shifting and undulating. The taut flesh of Csevet’s lower hips and upper buttocks pressed there, too, moving with the pony’s gait, and his warm, lean back was tight against Maia’s chest and belly. They were not a quarter mile along before Maia realized he was hard. Csevet, he thought, could not have been unaware of it, even through both their cloaks. He considered easing himself backward, to put a few inches of dignified distance between Csevet and his own fiercely obtrusive cockstand. But he feared falling from the pony if he did, and injury would be far worse than embarrassment.

“Art well, Bera?” Csevet asked, still in that oddly soft tone.

“I … I am,” Maia said, impressed that his voice was steady.

“Good. Just continue to hold on. I’d fain not have thee fall.”

Maia obeyed, clenching his fists together over Csevet’s breastbone, throbbing against the small of Csevet’s back.

The three miles to Parugo did not take long to cover. There was no paved road, not even a path cleared of snow, but the ponies’ heavy hooves stood them well in the snow and up and down the inclines. They crested a low-ish mountain whose summit was a broad bowl, and in its center sat the manor house.

Maia’s arousal diminished as the ponies halted on the rim of the bowl and he took in the sight before him. The manor was not as large as he had expected from Foduama’s words; it seemed about the size of Isvaroë, if his dimming memories of that estate served. Then again, Celvaz did not have the topography to support the sort of broad spread favored by highborn Ethuverazheisei from the southern bank of the Cethora southeast to the Barizheise border.

The house itself was a dark-gray rectangle of granite, with two wings of the same construction flanking the front courtyard. Large windows with white trim made the construction feel less dense and forbidding. At this time of year, Maia thought, they would also make the interior much colder, but of course he would seldom if ever be working inside. In addition to the house, there was a stable for ponies, the greenhouse, various sheds, and a small chicken coop to provide the kitchens with fresh eggs.

Foduama brought them around for introductions. Four young men helped him keep up the grounds of Parugo: Amuasa, who was his second-in-command; Rauviga; Thuikis; and Gatsuoga. Overseeing them all was a leather-skinned, rope-muscled old _Cel_ named Mathueret who, Foduama said, handled most of the repairs. Two housemaids cleaned the indoors, save for the kitchens, which were the domain of the cook Fenusu and her kitchenmaid.

Maia was gratified that none of them seemed offended by his appearance; here, perhaps even more so than in the villages south of the border, a goblin was a harmless novelty. Csevet had taught him the words _Pleased to meet you_ in Celvazhin the night before, and he took the opportunity to demonstrate his new knowledge. It met with delight all around — save for Thuikis, who did not look pleased at all to see two newcomers of any race at the estate, and Gatsuoga, who seemed ill at ease.

“That’s Thuikis for thee,” Foduama said to Maia later after the three of them had retreated to the greenhouse. “I don’t believe he likes anybody, and if he accidentally does, he quickly seeks reason not to. His little shadow Gatsuoga takes all his cues from Thuikis, though he’s affable enough when find’st him alone.”

Greenhouse work was not, Maia thought, terribly hard: watering and pruning, gently binding stems to stakes and trellises, adding baked goat or sheep dung to soil, moving pots about, turning the gaslights up or down, and getting an overall feel for the routine. But there was not enough of it to fill the entire day, so Foduama turned Maia and Csevet over to Mathueret, who set them to shoveling fresh snow from the main walkway. Csevet seemed to wield the shovel easily enough, but after the first ten or fifteen minutes the muscles in Maia’s arms began to burn. He bit his chapped lower lip and forced himself through the chore just as Setheris had once forced him through his lessons.

That night in the kitchens he could barely sit up in his chair to finish his supper, ravenous though he was, and it required heroic effort to communicate to anyone around him in more than a grunt. Afterward, when he slid into the communal bath during the men’s bathing time, he was too sore and exhausted to care that he was naked before half a dozen other men or that they were naked before him. He and Csevet were led to their places in the “lads’ dormitory,” a euphemism for a sizable room in the cellar with seven well-stuffed pallets, chests full of workmen’s clothes, and a washstand. Maia had the strength to pull off his boots but not to undress a second time; he collapsed onto his pallet and was asleep within a minute.

He woke to the feel of something hard pummeling his bare soles, and he groaned and tried to turn over. Mathueret’s rough voice snapped something in Celvazhin that was very clearly _Get up, thou._ Maia dragged himself up into a sitting position, gritting his teeth as his well-worked muscles protested at the motion. He heard similar groans around the room and similar rebukes from the overseer as Mathueret kicked at the feet of the other lads.

“What’s the clock?” he muttered to Csevet, unable to discern time of day in the windowless room.

Csevet sleepily repeated the question in Celvazhin to Mathueret, who snapped out one word in response. When Maia blinked at him, he held up all five fingers on one hand and repeated his earlier order. Maia got to his feet, shivered as he crossed the frigid stone floor, and pulled on socks and boots.

The sky outside the windows was still black, the morning stars glimmering, as they all filed into the kitchens. Breakfast sat on a side table in chafing dishes: the same gingered sausages that Khram had served, which Maia learned were a local specialty. There were also eggs fried with pickled scallions, little oaten cakes served hot and topped with butter, and strong tea with sweetroot again. The women had already served themselves and were tucking into their food. Conversation was muted to nonexistent as the men filled their plates and sat down; the main sounds in the room were those of chewing, swallowing, slurping, and finger sucking, with the occasional belch. Maia found that not only could he eat more than he had the morning before but it were as if a blacksmith’s forge fire roared in his belly.

On Mathueret’s order he and Csevet trod through the snow, shivering under their cloaks, to the greenhouse. There they waited until Foduama too walked over from the manor; it was his habit to confer therein with Mathueret upon riding in to Parugo each morning. After rattling off a list of chores for his new assistants, he asked, “Do you lads think you can manage alone for a few hours? A pipe’s burst in a lavatory and Mathueret’s asked me to help him repair it.”

“I think so,” Csevet said, looking to Maia. Maia nodded.

“Right, then. An you finish your tasks early, come look for me and Mathueret and we’ll find more for you to do.”

Their morning tasks took them even less time than Maia had anticipated, perhaps because they were getting the hang of them. “Shall we go looking for Foduama?” he asked Csevet.

“In another ten minutes. They won’t have fixed the pipes by now, and we might as well stand here in the warmth, not crowd them in the lavatory.”

Maia nodded, and he decided he would take the opportunity to look around the greenhouse. Through the tinted panes he could see the clouds from last night’s snow squalls clearing and the sun climbing its short winter arc. If the light it bathed the plants in was not as rich and golden as it would have been in summer, it was yet a balm to Maia’s spirits. The last time he had seen so many flowers and fronds had been at the funerals of his father and half-brothers; before that, it had been in the Edonara at summer’s end.

Yesterday’s tasks had not taken him to the far end of the greenhouse; now he ambled in that direction, admiring the rows of blooms on either side. Roses and lilies, asters and daisies, and hosts of flowers to which Maia could put no names. Those that most drew his eye were tall, with clusters of intricately shaped blossoms in an intense, rich violet blue. So lovely to behold; how intoxicating must be their scent? He leaned in, nostrils widening — 

_“No!”_

The word was still ringing in the air when a solid weight struck Maia in his right side and bore him down. He grunted as his entire left side hit the floor and the air was driven out of his lungs. After a hard blink cleared his head of the pain of impact, he found himself looking into wild, pale eyes no more than two inches away from his. “Csevet, what on earth—” he began indignantly.

“Never,” Csevet cut him off breathlessly in Ethuverazhin as his short-cut nails dug into Maia’s shoulders under his tunic. _“Never,_ ever, touch those flowers. Those are _ulivetora!”_

Maia’s blood ran cold. He might know nothing of botany, but he certainly knew what hood of Ulis was. It featured very, very prominently in blue-backed novels — and in actual gossip at the Untheileneise Court — about courtiers with unwanted spouses, lovers, or blood kin, be the troublesome party alive or dead. If one handled it at all, one did so with thick gloves and a rag over one’s mouth. He took as deep a breath as his bruised ribcage would permit, and he said in his careful Celvazhin, “I thank thee.”

Csevet seemed to suddenly realize that he was lying half atop Maia, and his face went from even paler than usual to a deep pink; so did his ears, which had been flat against his head and now fell precipitously. The mortal fear evaporated from his features as they closed off to Maia yet again, and gingerly he rose to his feet. Yet a faint, pained expression — guilt, Maia thought — flickered across his mask, and he leaned forward again and extended his hand. When Maia took it, it were as though a sliver of lightning jumped between their palms. He forced himself to disregard it as he stood, then released Csevet's hand.

“Forgive me my presumption,” Csevet muttered, turning away from him. He had reverted to Celvazhin. The back of his neck, as well as his ears, remained a deep pink. “I… I feared for thee.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Maia said unsteadily, brushing the dirt from the floor off his rough trousers. _As if the stains to them matter, hobgoblin,_ the voice in his head mocked him, and it sounded much less like Edrehasivar VII and much more like Setheris.

Csevet did not acknowledge the words. “I’ll … find Foduama now,” he said a shade too loudly. Maia was left alone with his thoughts and self-recrimination for perhaps ten minutes, after which he welcomed being sent to muck out the stables alone while Csevet shoveled snow from around them. The acrid stench of horse ordure burnt the sweet air of the greenhouse out of his nostrils, and the labor burnt his anxiety out of his blood.

He found himself slightly more able, over that night’s supper, to conduct a conversation. It was with Amuasa, a cheerful lad with the ears of a _Thu_ but the ruddy skin and dark-red hair of a _Cel._ Between Maia’s broken Celvazhin and Amuasa’s broken Ethuverazhin it did not go far beyond the level of weather and the most basic verbs for chores, but Maia counted it a small victory.

So tired and sore was he that when he later eased himself into the bath he unthinkingly let out a loud moan. Laughter rang off the tiles, but Maia, closing his eyes as the heat of the water sank into his strained thews, had no energy with which to be further embarrassed.

“Better than quim, aye?” Rauviga asked in Ethuverazhin.

“… Aye?” Maia slurred in the same tongue, not having the least idea what “quim” meant, and that drew another round of laughter. Maia opened his eyes again, just in time to catch Csevet stifling a smile as he ducked his head.

“How wouldst know, Rauviga?” Thuikis asked. Gatsuoga alone sniggered.

“From thy dam, of course,” came the rejoinder from Amuasa, and this time all but Thuikis laughed.

Something wet and hot slapped Maia lightly across the face from the direction in which he wasn’t looking; he reached up and peeled a straw-colored flannel off his skin. “Scrub,” Amuasa said in his rudimentary Ethuverazhin. “Before fall’st asleep in bath and we fish thee out.”

Maia managed a weary smile for him as he took a chunk of soap from the holder along the side of the tub. “Thank’ee,” he said, using the informal Celvazhin, which got him a grin in return.

Celvazhin had some similarities to both Ethuverazhin and Barizhin, including how it marked things as male or female. Its grammatical structure was markedly different, however, and it heavily employed sounds that were much less common in either of Maia’s cradle languages. In sooth, though, he found it not terribly hard to pick up what bits he needed.

“Knew’st two tongues already,” Csevet told him one afternoon a week after their arrival, as they whittled away at the fresh snow clogging the main walkway. “Michen drink in all language like water, but for an adult the third and later are always easier than the second.” Early on, he had constantly switched back and forth between Celvazhin and Ethuverazhin for Maia; now he tried to keep entirely to Celvazhin, that Maia would be forced to think and reply in it. Foduama had begun to do the same, and nobody else at Parugo spoke more than a very little Ethuverazhin.

“It is… not hard,” Maia said haltingly. “I shovel, I water, I carry, I cut. I do not … hear men.” When Csevet tilted his head in incomprehension, Maia said in Ethuverazhin, “Give audiences.” Switching back to Celvazhin, he added, “No law, no letters, no … no smooth words.”

“No,” Csevet said, his smile fleeting but laughter in his voice. “No smooth words. No smooth _men.”_

Maia laughed at that and took up another shovel of snow. As his mind was accustoming itself to the new language spoken all about him, his muscles were, likewise, accustoming themselves to his new lot in life. They still ached at the end of the day, but less so in the mornings, and he was no longer struggling so hard at his chores.

Then came the morning they began to ache again, and his bones, too, and his head. His lungs did not ache so much as feel shot through with arrows, and he was trembling. When Mathueret kicked his feet, Maia sat up immediately, felt the dormitory tilt around him, and grabbed his head with shaking hands. “No,” he groaned, and though his speech dissolved immediately into a fit of wet coughing, he also managed to get out “Can’t.” His Celvazhin had improved a fair bit after more than two weeks at Parugo, but finding the words in his brain just now was like trying to shovel snow had been on the very first day.

Maia felt a leathery hand on his forehead. Then Mathueret uttered what Maia recognized as a profanity. He gently shoved at Maia’s shoulder until Maia was supine again, and he said something to Csevet, who came awake from his early-morning torpor at once.

“Rest thee, Bera,” he said gravely in Celvazhin. “Art ill. Mathueret fears it be the bronchine. They’ll move thee to the sickroom.”

Maia tried to nod, but it made the room spin wildly to the point that his stomach revolted. Instead he subsided beneath his blanket. He felt a gentle weight be laid atop it. “May’st have my blanket for the day,” Csevet said. “I’ll ask Ruathito if she can find more, and Fenusu to make thee up a tisane.”

Maia closed his eyes, listening to the pounding of a dozen booted feet exiting the dormitory. Why were they stomping like that? Their echoes went on, and on, and on, until it came to him that he was hearing only his own pulse in his head and that this realization had come rather late. He pulled his blanket and Csevet’s around himself more tightly, shaking with cold under the double warmth, until the room went blurry. He was walking through the Edonara in the misting rain that had caught him unaware and soaked him to the skin, and he clutched his arms about his shivering torso. Setheris would call him a moonwit and beat him for ruining his clothes. Perhaps he could slip in through the kitchen door, where Kevo would dry him off and make him up a tisane — 

“Here, lad.”

“Kevo?” Maia croaked. The strong arm about his shoulders felt like Kevo’s, but the voice was wrong, too deep, strangely accented, not even speaking Ethuverazhin.

“Nay, ’tis Fenusu.” Who was Fenusu? Oh, yes, the cook at Parugo. Heated stoneware pressed against his bottom lip; steam bathed his face. “Drink; I’ll hold it steady for thee.” Maia sipped, his nose wrinkling at the bitterness of coltsfoot that was barely disguised with sweetroot.

“Get as much as canst down thee,” Fenusu said, stern and kind at once. Maia pushed himself to drain the mug, clutching at it. Heat emanated from the ceramic between Fenusu’s rough fingers, but it seemed to barely rest on Maia’s skin, let alone penetrate beneath. He could smell and hear a fire roaring nearby, but his body could not sense it.

“Good lad, now lie thee down again,” the cook said. It was no effort to do so, rather an effort to simply not plummet backward onto the pallet. Someone was piling a gentle weight upon him again. More blankets? They were doing him no good; beneath them he felt like a bean in a dried pod, bones and teeth rattling.

The sickroom faded away to the dusty storage chamber that Setheris had made his classroom, and Setheris was beating Maia about the head with a heavy law tome. “Stop,” Maia cried, trying to cover his head. Then Setheris had somehow managed to insert a blade into the marrow of every bone in Maia’s body and was leaning on all the handles at once, trying to split the bones apart. Maia threw out his arms and screamed in pain — _Art no better,_ someone said despairingly. _Indeed, art no better than thy late idiot dam,_ Setheris said, and pulled harder on the knife handles. The first voice said something in a strange language, and all Maia caught of it was _Ulis._ Setheris sneered, _Superstitious moonwit,_ and cuffed Maia across the head. Maia fell not into the firescreen but into the open hearth and his flesh was on fire. He burned and burned, and he could hear a voice calling for someone else, then calling _Maia? Maia!_ “Mama?” he blurted. What was she doing here? She was supposed to be with Ulis, but she was ten feet tall with massive grey wings and her voice didn’t sound like her at all. Had the strange voice speaking the strange language called her back? “Fly us back to Isvaroë, away from Cousin,” he pleaded. Someone else was praying under their breath, not to Ulis but to a goddess he didn’t know because his mother didn’t worship her, Salezh-something-or-other. A hand grasped his, strong and lean, and the bones in his hands hurt, and he was lying naked in the snow north of Azharee and the fire in his flesh had turned to ice and he was shaking again. “Make him stop hurting me,” he begged. _I will, I will,_ the voice said, thick and broken. _Just, please, Maia, do not leave me._ And Maia was laughing hysterically, because Mama had left _him,_ hadn’t she? She’d been unable to stop trembling, and Ulis had draped a thick cloak over her to keep her warm and then she’d lain still. Maia would go with Ulis if Ulis would keep him warm, too … keep him and Mama warm together …

Everything thickened and turned a greyish black, not only sights but sounds and sensations. Ulis’s antechamber, where souls awaited to be taken into the god’s open hands, was said to be dark and cold. Then Maia’s thoughts went thick and grey, too, and ceased altogether.

At some point later, how much later he had no idea, he began to float upward from sleep, a deceptively gentle rise. As he sat up on the pallet he shivered. His nightshirt and the bedclothes were waterlogged with sweat, and stale sweat at that. He wanted nothing more than a long, hot wash, but his bones and his muscles still ached deeply, as did his head, and he knew he’d never make it to the bathing chamber alone. For the first time in weeks he thought of how skillfully his edocharei had shepherded him about, and with a twinge of guilt he wondered how they fared now.

As his head began to clear, he looked about the sickroom. Ten pallets, all in all, and all empty — save one. No blankets lay over its occupant, just an undyed linen sheet drawn up entirely over the face.

There was an icy pang in Maia’s gut. He knew he should lie still and regain his strength. Gingerly, pushing against the wall behind him for support, he got to his feet instead and gauged the length and width of the sickroom. Cross it unsupported, risking a fall? Or make his way around the perimeter, draining his strength further? With a bite of his lip and a brief prayer to Cstheio, he managed to stagger across the open space and catch himself on the opposite wall. He breathed deeply for a good minute until he felt steady again, and then he sank to his knees beside the pallet.

When he drew back the shroud, he saw the ears of a _Thu,_ the dark-red hair of a _Cel,_ and the blue-white skin that the bronchine left in its wake.

“Art awake,” Fenusu said from the doorway, but with no exultation in her voice, just a sad weariness.

“Aye,” Maia said quietly, and drew the shroud back over Amuasa’s face.

***

Maia submitted weakly to a thorough and motherly spongebath by Fenusu, then let her help him to a clean pallet so she could strip the one he had awakened upon of its linens. She was just finishing that task when Csevet came in; he knelt by Maia’s new pallet and clutched his hand tightly in his own. Relief radiated from his eyes, but dark shadows pooled beneath them.

“Thou must…. care for thyself,” Maia said weakly in Celvazhin. “Otherwise wilt lie here too.”

“I am perfectly hale,” Csevet said, squeezing his hand tighter. “More so, now that I’ve seen thee awake and unfevered.”

“I wish thy face were the first thing he’d seen upon awakening,” Fenusu said from the hearth, which she was now sweeping. “Instead ’twas poor Amuasa.”

Csevet’s expression clouded over. “Has he kin to claim his body?”

“Aye, in a village ten miles away. Foduama rides there now, towing a little wagon. Amuasa in his shroud, with a sprig of rosemary pinned to it. Poor folk, losing their lad so close to Winternight. I sent Foduama along with a bottle of metheglin I put up last summer, so they can drink to his memory and pour a bit on the pyre for Ulis.”

“I will… pray for him,” Maia said, finding the word he sought.

Fenusu turned to him. “That’s kind of thee, Bera. Art a good lad.” Maia felt his face and ears grow warm, and Csevet squeezed his hand again.

Then an urge struck him. “Fenusu… hast…” He had no idea what the word was in Celvazhin. He sat up groggily on one elbow and, with the other hand, mimicked the working of beads over his forefinger with the pad of his thumb.

Csevet gave her the word in her own tongue, but the cook’s face had already lit up and Maia guessed she’d understood him. When next she appeared in the sickroom several hours later, she deposited something into Maia’s palm, something hard and smooth with many bumps, and she closed his fingers around it. It was a string of seventy bone beads, each carved with a little star.

For the next few days, he had little more strength than enabled him to thumb each bead, one by one, over the arc of his knuckles. Though his mother had taught him very little of petitions to Ulis, he knew the most basic words to the Barizheise prayer for the dead. He repeated the words and Amuasa’s name over and over in time with the clicks of the beads, and he alternated the prayer with his childhood mantra: _Cstheio Caireizhasan, hear me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, see me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, know me._

As his strength returned, with it came a sense of guilt at lying idle for so long. Four days into his recuperation he gave in to it. He still felt drained, but he could walk without staggering, so he returned to the dormitory, found his hat and cloak, and went to the greenhouse. Csevet gave him an incredulous stare; Foduama cursed him for an idiot and ordered him back to the sickroom. Maia insisted on puttering about as best he could, and Foduama threw up his hands with a mutter of resignation. The puttering lasted all of fifteen minutes. Cursing Maia again, Foduama had Csevet bring him back to the sickroom, where he fell asleep even as Csevet was pulling his boots off. He woke up at some point to a hot tisane, a bowl of broth, and sharp disapproval from Fenusu, all of which he accepted dutifully; and he was asleep again perhaps five minutes after finishing both bowl and mug.

For the next four days he reimmersed himself in prayers for Amuasa. On the ninth day after the breaking of his fever, he ventured outdoors again with Fenusu’s wary permission. Though he still did not feel entirely hale, he was able to work for five hours before his body began to clamor for the pallet. On the twelfth day he was back at shoveling snow in the afternoon.

It would have been an exaggeration to say he grieved Amuasa as a friend, not having known him for very long. It was merely sadness that one so young and previously healthy, and amiable at that, had been taken by Ulis. But he began to miss Amuasa markedly soon enough, for it became clear that by dint of his post and even more so his character, the young man had had a salutary effect on his fellows. Rauviga remained pleasant enough to Maia and Csevet, but Thuikis alternated between sullen silence and overt snideness. Gatsuoga’s mien depended entirely on whether he was in Thuikis’s presence.

Maia’s ability to brush off the churlishness began to wane the night in the bath when Thuikis asked Csevet, “Wert a courier in Cetho, aye?”

His tone had seemed light, but Csevet’s face was stony and his ears against his head as he replied, “Aye.” He kept his eyes fixed on the wall far above Thuikis’s head.

“They keep couriers busy, I hear tell. One courier might carry a dozen messages in one day, an he not be sent very far. I reckon thou missest thy days of serving so many lords and other men.” The emphasis on _serving_ was ambiguous, but only barely. The same quiet sneer in Setheris’s words had always been Maia’s introduction to at least fifteen minutes of drunken ranting about marnei and their “disgusting” practices.

Gatsuoga sniggered at Thuikis’s remark. Rauviga looked as though he wished he were not naked in the bath with Thuikis and Gatsuoga. Csevet’s expression remained hard and cold. Mathueret’s mouth twisted with patent distaste, but he said nothing.

The next evening, Maia and Csevet walked into the bathing chamber to find the rest of the men already in the water. “Ah, here comes the courier and his … dearest friend,” Thuikis called out, his overall tone jovial but his emphasis on the last two words unmistakable.

“Yes, we are dear friends,” Maia said, slipping into the brook-no-nonsense tones of Edrehasivar VII as he climbed down into the water. Out the corner of his eye he could see Csevet’s face and ears pinken.

“Oh, I’ll wager you are. ’Twas a long journey up from the Ethuveraz in the snow and ice, aye? You two must have had to cling together like limpets under the blankets at night.”

Other than Gatsuoga’s snorting and the splash of water, the bath was silent. Thuikis tried again: “How does dormitory life accord with thee, Csevet?”

“Well enough,” Csevet said curtly.

“Aye, I can imagine. Not as much… variety as the couriers’ dormitory, I reckon. But it can’t be too hard on thine eyes to watch the rest of us donning and doffing our clothes, can it? Except for Mathueret there, unless gett’st a horn for dried-out leather.” Gatsuoga stifled an explosive laugh.

“That’ll do,” Mathueret said sharply, glaring at Thuikis, whose grin died away immediately. Maia began to draw a breath of relief, but it hitched in his throat as the overseer added, “We’ll have no talk of perversion amongst our men, especially not in the bath.”

Maia stole a look at Csevet. His face was of stone again, his mouth like a straight line cut into it, and his ears rigidly set.

A few mornings later, Foduama announced he needed to ride into the nearest village to obtain more supplies. Fifteen minutes after his departure, Csevet called out to Maia, “Bera, know’st where the sack of goat dung is?”

With a frown, Maia raised his head from the roses he’d been pruning. “Is’t not in the east corner?”

“I’d vow it was there when we left yesterday, but it’s not there now, nor elsewhere in here,” Csevet said bemusedly.

“Perhaps Foduama put it in the back shed?”

“I don’t see why he would have, but I’ll check.” Csevet took down his cloak and hat from the pegs. “I’ll be but a minute or two.”

Six or seven minutes passed. The curls on the nape of Maia’s neck began to tighten. Chances were, another man had drawn Csevet into conversation or, perhaps, another chore. But a nagging pull under the point of Maia’s ribcage urged him to put on his own cloak and hat and follow Csevet’s bootprints in the snow. They led to the door of the back shed — where they converged with two other sets of fresh prints. But even before Maia saw that, he could hear thumps, grunts, and scuffles within the little building.

He pushed at the door. It banged on its latch, and the noises within the shed died away except for the scuffling. Anger surged through him, pinning back his ears. He took a few steps backward, then barreled his entire body against the door as he and Csevet had done to the tree bole at the tunnel exit north of Azharee. The latch had been meant to guard against animals and weather more than against men, and it gave easily under his weight.

The sun streaming into the dim of the shed gleamed off the white of Csevet’s naked hips and thighs. His body was stretched between Thuikis, who had his arms pinioned, and Gatsuoga, who was attempting to work his trousers and linens off his lower legs as he struggled. The faces of all three men were bruised and bleeding, Csevet’s most of all.

“Bera!” Csevet sounded less relieved than alarmed.

“What on earth?” Maia demanded.

“Get out and keep thy mouth shut,” Thuikis grunted, swaying with Csevet’s struggles. “Unless want’st some of what thy little bedwarmer’s about to get.”

“I think not,” Maia said stonily, dropping to one knee and reaching into his right boot.

 _“Bera!”_ Csevet called out again, far more sharply.

Thuikis’s eyes went to the knife in Maia’s hand. A contemptuous laugh broke from him. “Hast ever wielded a blade in thy life before, soft one?”

“Wouldst like to find out for thyself?” Maia asked quietly.

Thuikis did not speak or move in reply, not at first. But Gatsuoga dropped Csevet’s ankles and backed away, eyes wide, tongue darting out to wet his lips. Thuikis, realizing he would be but one man facing two and one of them armed at that, yanked Csevet’s arms upward and then shoved him forward. Csevet thudded facedown onto the dirt floor, where he shivered and struggled to his feet.

“Get out,” Maia said as quietly as before. “The both of you.”

The two men, eyeing him warily, exited through the broken door, which banged behind them. Maia kept his eyes on the doorway until he could hear the crunch of their boots in the snow diminish with distance. Then he turned to Csevet, who had gotten to his feet and pulled up and refastened his trousers. His discarded cloak and hat were at Maia’s feet; Maia picked them up and moved to cover him with the former — and backed away in shock at the fury in his battered face.

“Shouldst _not_ have done that,” Csevet snapped.

Maia fought to keep his jaw from dropping. “They were about to — to harm thee!”

“Aye, and they’d have harmed us both an they’d called thy bluff and discovered didst not know how to fight with a blade!” Csevet took his winterwear from Maia and drew the cloak about himself with shaking hands. His ears had been flat to his skull since Maia burst into the shed, and there they remained as he pulled the hat down over them.

“Csevet… I know not what they meant to do to thee, but I know they intended thee ill,” Maia said softly. “I could not let them.”

Csevet did not reply. His eyes were on the floor, and his hands continued to tremble. Maia longed to put his arm around Csevet, but something in him warned vociferously against it.

Finally Csevet raised his head and said, “I… would have survived it.” There was something in his eyes that made Maia think of Ulis.

“Shouldst not have _had_ to!” Maia exclaimed, his breakfast roiling in his belly.

Csevet’s eyes came alive again for a second, blindingly bright with anger within their rings of bruises. “Aye, well, I’ve survived many things I should not have had to,” he said, dry and bitter. Then his eyes looked dead again, and he profoundly tired overall.

Maia’s own anger rekindled. “We must tell Mathueret. And Foduama.”

 _“No,”_ Csevet hissed. “Didst not hear the old man in the bath the other night? Think’st not he’d blame me for it? Or Foduama, for taking us on?”

Maia stared at him. He’d thought no such thing. He’d thought that neither Mathueret nor Foduama would want to employ men who set upon their fellows with violence in their hearts.

 _Sheltered moonwit._ This time the voice was entirely Setheris’s.

Maia sighed. “Art bleeding. They’ll ask thee questions, no matter what sayest.”

“I’ll tell them I fell face first onto a rake, and thou canst vouch for me.” The bitterness had returned, and Maia flinched from it.

“Let me treat thy wounds in the greenhouse. I can use the cleaning vinegar. And there must be at least one healing herb in bloom; Fenusu wouldn’t countenance its lack.”

To Maia’s vast relief, Csevet nodded numbly at the suggestion. Back in the greenhouse, he settled himself onto the stool at the little desk where Foduama kept accounts and notes, and Maia fetched the vinegar jug and a clean cloth. With every swipe of the cloth across his face, Csevet winced, and Maia felt each wince in the pit of his own stomach. But he persisted until he felt he’d cleaned the wounds as best he could.

“Recognizest _csaivocairo?”_ Csevet asked, his face pinched in pain. When Maia nodded, Csevet said, “Pick one blossom, crush its leaves, mix them with a little water, and dab it sparingly onto or into the wounds, save those to my mouth. It should never be ingested.”

Star of Csaivo was a many-petaled blossom of buttery orange yellow. Crushed, the bloom released a faint scent of pine and spice. Having washed his hands in vinegar and melted snowwater, Maia took up a small amount on one fingertip, mixed it with more snowmelt, and ever so gently dabbed at Csevet’s cuts and bruises. Csevet continued to wince, but not as much as earlier. His eyes remained distant and dull, though a muscle jumped at the corner of his mouth. Maia fought the urge to lay his palm on Csevet’s cheek, ghostly white where Thuikis and Gatsuoga had not marked it with their fists, and gently smooth the skin until both bruises and tension melted away and Csevet inclined his head against Maia’s hand.

His thoughts were interrupted by the creak of the door and a bark of, “Balls of Ulis, Csevet, what happened to thee?”

“I fell face first onto a rake,” Csevet said, with the perfect flatness of one who dares another to challenge his blatant lie.

Foduama’s gaze shifted to Maia, whose throat stuck and left him unable to vouch for Csevet’s explanation. He ducked his head, his face and ears growing hot, and swallowed audibly.

“I see,” Foduama said mildly. He turned to the sack of whatever he had bought in the village, and he said nothing more on the matter.

In the bath that night, however, Thuikis glowered silently at Csevet and Maia from over a badly split lip, which had not been there when Maia saw him in the shed. Gatsuoga’s face bore no additional marks, but he seemed to have withdrawn into himself. Rauviga looked even less comfortable than he had the other night, and Mathueret kept his own silence. Csevet’s face was a mask. Maia washed up as quickly as possible and departed for the dormitory, with Csevet at his heels. Not knowing what to say, he held his tongue. But as they lay on their pallets, drifting off to sleep, Csevet’s faint and weary smile did not escape his notice.


	5. Winternight

Hard on the heels of these events came Winternight. Not long before, Foduama announced in the kitchens at supper that all were welcome to join him and Khram that night for food, drink, conversation, and, if need be, a place to sleep. In the bath shortly afterward, Thuikis let it be known that he and Gatsuoga planned to be in the village where, Maia had heard from Rauviga, young men would be carousing until dawn.

From subsequent conversation, Maia learned that Fenusu was to visit her kin and bring along the kitchenmaid, who had been orphaned a few years before, and that one of the other two maids was setting out to see her own family. Mathueret gruffly stated he would enjoy his solitude that night and tend to the animals and plants in the morning. Rauviga, however, accepted Foduama’s invitation, and out of Thuikis’s and Gatsuoga’s earshot he added that “my future bride Ruathito” would be joining him.

“I didn’t know she was his betrothed,” Maia said in the greenhouse the next morning.

“They’ve been discreet about it,” Foduama said, not looking up from his accounts. “Especially after Amuasa died. Wouldst _thou_ want Thuikis making sly comments to thee in the bath about thy woman’s charms?”

“Not especially,” Maia admitted.

To himself he also admitted that, for the first time in ten years, he was looking forward to the solstice. Not to his birthday, to be precise: he had not celebrated it since his mother had died, and such celebration could not now be imposed upon him as his imperial duty. At court, Csevet had been horrified when Maia told him he wanted no festivities, but here at Parugo Csevet had not raised the subject at all. As duty was now a moot point — indeed, he would not even be spending Winternight with his fellow Ethuverazheisei, save Csevet — he trusted that his secretary was deferring to his feelings on the matter.

But he was most certainly looking forward to a warm and cozy parlor, good food, and only friendly faces. It would be a pleasant change from the kitchens and the dormitory. He had not seen Khram since his and Csevet’s first night in Celvaz, and he thought he would like to see her again. Rauviga was amiable enough, as was Ruathito.

On the day before Winternight, Parugo’s skeleton crew worked only until half past noon. Fenusu and the two maids had already departed the night before, but Fenusu had set aside dried sausage, hard cheese, day-old bread, and fruit preserves for the breakfasts of those who remained. Foduama augmented this by making omelets with preserved greens and brewing tea. It was little more than journey fare, but it was perfectly palatable and hearty enough.

After anything that could not wait for a few days had been tended to, Mathueret declared the workday over and retired to his quarters. Thuikis and Gatsuoga rode off in the direction of carousal, whooping loudly. The rest of them rode to Foduama’s house, Maia once again seated pillion behind Csevet and biting his lip to distract himself from the feel of Csevet’s warm, firm flesh rubbing up and down between his legs.

Khram had already laid out the feast in the parlor: salmon and brook trout rubbed in white pepper and baked in thick suet crusts; winter greens studded with dried savory berries and sprinkled with gratings of a nutty hard cheese that was the specialty of a farm twenty miles east; a softer and milder cheese that had been cut into chunks, rolled in flour, and deep-fried; chestnuts soaked in chestnut honey; and lady apples soaked in treacle, dusted in nutmeg and cloves, and baked in flaky pastry crusts. Maia, having tasted no seasonings but salt since he first awakened in Azharee, understood viscerally that the spices Khram had used were not easily obtained in the Osreialhalans and were therefore reserved for special occasions such as Winternight.

In addition to the beer Maia could not stomach and the metheglin whose very smell he could barely abide, there was a small bottle of ice wine. “I think the count shan’t miss this one bottle out of his entire cellar,” Foduama said jovially as he poured a portion for Maia into one of Khram’s heavy stoneware mugs.

“Didst not need to bring it here for my sake,” Maia said, humbled at the consideration.

“Of course I did. Why shouldst not enjoy spirits tonight, of all nights?”

“Wouldst thou at least share my wine with me?” It did not feel right for him to have the bottle to himself, if only because he did not wish to drink himself senseless.

Foduama shook his head with a broad smile. “Ah, I have my beer and my metheglin, and Khram favors those as well.” Rauviga and Ruathito, who were each cradling a mug of metheglin, smiled and waved away Maia’s offer too.

“I’ll share a glass with thee, Bera,” Csevet said.

“No glasses here, popinjay. Think’st thou’rt at court?” Foduama said with a good-natured jeer as he filled a mug with wine for Csevet. “Now that we’re all watered for the moment, shall we bless the year to come and quench the gods’ thirst as well?”

“Aye, good idea,” Rauviga said.

“‘Quench the gods’ thirst’?” Maia echoed in an undertone to Csevet.

“Follow our leads,” Csevet replied just as quietly.

Foduama lifted his mug high into the air. Khram did so next, and then Rauviga, Ruathito, and Csevet. Maia followed suit. Then Foduama lowered his mug, dipped his right forefinger into his beer, and flicked the droplets across the floor. “To Orshan, Lady of the Fields,” he said. “May the earth open early and close late in the New Year, and may we stagger under the weight of the crops and flowers brought forth from it.”

Khram was the first to repeat the motions, as lady of the house, Maia assumed. She growled a long phrase in her own tongue, and Foduama translated: “‘To the Akharar-Mam, the great Mother Bear, She who watches over her cubs on earth and protects them fiercely.’” Maia blinked. He had not realized that animal deities were still worshipped, as they were in some of the wonder-tales. But, he supposed, it would make sense for bear-folk to worship a bear-goddess.

Rauviga went next, and Maia did not blink so much as give a start at his words: “Lord Chevarimai. Give my lovely bride and me many joyous years together, in our bedchamber and out of it.” Ruathito blushed bright red and giggled as he flicked metheglin into the air.

“Chevarimai?” Maia echoed, too stunned to feel embarrassed at Rauviga’s petition to that god.

“Aye,” Rauviga said with a grin. “That prayer’s a bit bawdy for Ethuverazheise tastes, I reckon.”

“Not just bawdy, Rauviga,” Foduama said. “Forbidden. Surely hast heard that one of the emperors of old ran the cult clear out of the Elflands because their rites offended the prelacy, and in those days the prelacy had the emperor’s ear.”

“Were their rites… bawdy?” Maia asked. He recalled a particularly lurid scene out of one of Kevo’s novels in which three Chevarimaise priests had been about to debauch a young maiden bound naked to an altar when her beloved broke into the temple in the nick of time and saved her virtue. But, surely, if such down-to-earth folk as Rauviga and Ruathito were worshippers of the god, the rites could not be so salacious?

“It’s … rather tamer these days,” Foduama said. “But, at the time the cult was banned in the Ethuveraz, its dévotés practiced ritual copulation. Close thy mouth, Bera, we’ve moths in the house.” Khram gave him a reproving slap, claws retracted, to the shoulder. Maia closed his mouth, his face and ears burning hotter.

“It was not as … thou likely think’st,” Rauviga said. He did not blush, but he was choosing his words carefully, and he must have been mindful that Maia’s knowledge of Celvazhin was not sophisticated. “We believe the union of bodies is holy, when both man and woman and especially husband and wife come to it of their own will. The priests and priestesses of old … drew down the god, if wilt, upon the altar one to one while their fellows looked on. The worshippers were forbidden to see. Very sacred, very serious.” Rauviga’s expression, too, was very serious. “When the priestesses conceived, the children were raised in the temple as the god’s gifts, and most of them donned the robes too when they came of age.”

“The prelates, as you might imagine, exaggerated the nature of the rites somewhat,” Foduama said drily. “Entertainment for the whole congregation, who sometimes joined in. And not just man and woman, but man and man, woman and woman, man and child, man and goat…”

“Hold thy tongue, scoundrel; man and goat _is_ a sacred union!” Rauviga exclaimed, and it was not until Foduama burst out laughing and Ruathito rolled her eyes that Rauviga broke into a grin and Maia realized it was a joke. “But, no, Bera,” he resumed, only somewhat less serious than before, “it was holy, not debauched.”

Maia suddenly became aware that Csevet, to his left, had grown very quiet. His face was shuttered, his ears hung low, and he was keeping his eyes on the surface of his wine. As Maia wondered what in Rauviga’s account might have discomfited Csevet, Foduama said, “Ruathito? Thy turn.”

“My bridegroom’s prayer is mine as well,” Ruathito said with a shy smile, dipping her forefinger into her metheglin. “And may the god open my womb and bless us with hale and handsome sons… and, perhaps, a wee daughter too.”

“Sons first,” Rauviga said sternly, and Ruathito pouted, but then he leaned forward and kissed her forehead tenderly, and she smiled and inclined her head against his chest.

“Csevet?” Foduama said.

Csevet raised his head. A softness was breaking through the mask of his face, bringing a glow to his eyes. “Lady Salezheio,” he said, dipping one elegant finger into his wine and sending the droplet skittering. “I am a courier no longer, but I have called upon thee since I could first sit a horse, and didst shelter me under thy fleet wings more times than I can count. I do not know what hast planned for me, but I will trust in thy wisdom and thy care, and in thy season of winter I petition thee to smile upon me in the New Year.”

Maia’s throat tightened. He had not known Csevet to be observant in any wise, and to hear him pray so now was deeply moving — and, oddly, intimate.

“Bera?” Csevet said, meeting his eyes.

Maia bowed his head over his wine. “Cstheio Caireizhasan, Dreaming Lady of the Stars, whom I have asked to see, hear, and know me since I was a michen.” The ice wine was cool and tingling on his fingertips as he dipped them into the mug, then flicked the precious drops away. “I cannot ask thy protection, as my friend Csevet does of Salezheio. But I ask that thou clear’st my vision, that I can perceive the path before me, make myself ready, and put my feet to it.”

A few seconds of silence passed in which Maia could almost feel their goddesses — all-nurturing Orshan, ferocious Akharar-Mam, gravely sensual Chevarimai, fleet Salezheio with her sheltering wings, wise but inscrutable Cstheio — standing among them. Then Foduama shouted, “Throw back your mugs!”, and the moment was broken.

The ice wine was almost painfully sweet on Maia’s tongue, and it seemed to go to his head with only one sip. Foduama, by contrast, bolted all of his beer, and Khram took a generous sip of her own without seeming any worse for wear. Rauviga and Ruathito drank from one another’s mugs, crossing arms and spilling a few drops, to their own amusement and that of Foduama.

Csevet took his first sip of his ice wine, and something in his eyes at the taste of it sent blood rushing to Maia’s face — and loins. He turned sharply away to follow Foduama to the table on which the feast was laid out. Csevet fell in line behind him for an empty plate, Rauviga and Ruathito rose to stand behind him, and Khram went last.

As with the grouse Khram had served on Maia’s first night in Celvaz, the food was rough by Untheileneise Court standards but no less exquisite on the tongue, the main dishes especially. Maia had not tasted fish since leaving Azharee, and there it had been neither exceedingly fresh nor cooked with any sort of finesse. The sole cheese its provisioner bought had been bland, and nothing sweet, even common sweetroot, had been permitted at the monastery. At Parugo Maia had eaten better foodstuffs, but even Fenusu’s deft and capable hands did not have the touch of culinary magic that seemed to invest Khram’s furry ones. He wondered that a bear-woman of the far North would have such talents, but then Foduama and Csevet absorbed his attention with an entertaining recollection of someone they’d known years ago in Cetho.

The evening passed in a blur of dishes, conversation, laughter, and possibly one more mug of wine than Maia had intended to drink. He did not fully appreciate how much time had elapsed and how much the mood had shifted until realized how much softer and more teasing the laughter about him had grown. Khram was sitting on Foduama’s lap, idly stroking his hair as his face nestled against her bosom, and Rauviga and Ruathito were kissing as passionately as they could without her relinquishing her chair for his lap. Quite against his will, Maia recalled one occasion on which Setheris, freshly returned from a village near Edonomee, was drunk and ranting within twenty minutes: _… the way the commoners grope one another. As if they were all whores advertising for custom._ The memory were as if someone had poured vinegar into his wine, and he found himself pushing his mug away and staring down at the floor.

“Bera. Come outside with me?”

Csevet’s words were like a rope thrown to the drowning. “Aye, I’d like that,” Maia said. They made their excuses as they rose to fetch cloaks and hats, but they got merely an absent nod from Foduama, and the rest seemed not to have heard at all.

The year’s longest night was crisp as a dry leaf and bitterly cold. But there was no wind at all, and just a lungful of the frigid air cleared Maia’s head, as delicious as a cool spring in summer. He followed Csevet to the tiny stable behind the cave-house, where Foduama sheltered his pony, and they leaned against the outer wall.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Then Maia, feeling awkward, broached the silence: “I didn’t know wert… observant.”

“‘Observant’ would be overstating the matter greatly,” Csevet said wryly. “It’s ingrained in a courier to call upon Salezheio: that a storm hold off until one has reached one’s destination, that the recipient of the message shelter one for the night, that … certain ills do not come to pass. She did not always heed my pleas” — his mouth flattened ever so briefly — “but, all in all, she has smiled upon me. It’s no great sacrifice to quench her thirst on Winternight and offer up a prayer to her.”

He paused, then added, “That said, before I left court, I did pay a visit to the Untheileneise’meire.”

“Oh?” Maia said, truly startled.

Csevet looked down at the snow beneath his boots, as if he were about to admit to something scandalous. “It was the evening of the day the Princess Sheveän and Lord Chavar announced they had taken the throne,” he said quietly. “I feared greatly — for thee, for the Prince of the Court, for all who served thee, and for myself as well. But I was angry, too, and in sooth mine anger was greater than my fear. I was seized with an unshakeable instinct that I must act, must do _something_ … though I knew not what. But I knew that were I to act when I was in such a state, I would only make matters worse. I needed clarity of mind.”

“So prayed’st to the Lady of the Stars for that clarity?” Maia asked.

“In a manner of speaking. I went to her chapel in the Untheileneise’meire and knelt there. I was not raised with any sort of piety, nor am I given to contemplation as thou art.” He gave a short, ironic laugh. “I thought for a while, then I tried to make a pretty speech to her, as if I were beseeching an important and impatient nobleman for a boon. I apologized for not having acknowledged her before, but I explained that I’d committed myself to the deposed emperor, who had followed her since he was a small boy; surely she would help clear my mind and show me the path I should take?”

“And did she?”

Csevet, still looking down at the snow, smiled now. “She did… in the form of the Archprelate.”

Maia blinked. “He found thee kneeling there?”

“He did. He himself had gone to the chapel of Cstheio Caireizhasan for the same reason. No others were in the entire Untheileneise’meire, save the canons, and they weren’t near us. I’m sure any other laymen at court who prayed that night did so in the privacy of their own chambers, for the princess’s disdain for worship is no secret, and Chavar has no truck with the gods himself. For my part I visited the Untheileneise’meire under cover of night, well cloaked.”

“Did he … teach thee how to pray?” Teru Tethimar had seemed kind, quite devoted to his calling, but Maia was not entirely successful in imagining him taking the time to minister to a commoner.

“Well… not quite.” Csevet’s wry tone was back. “He’d overheard me in the chapel as he entered. He very humbly begged my pardon for interrupting me, but he wished to assure me there was no particular formula of prayer to adhere to. In fact, he said, I might do better to simply think of the goddess, contemplate her icon, and let the peace of her chapel seep into me. I said I’d try that. He knelt beside me, and we remained like that in silence for a very long time, and I tried to heed his suggestions. It was not as though any great cloak of peace descended upon my shoulders, but I did grow calmer, and my mind sharper.

“Then the Archprelate rose and said, ‘Wait here; we would give you something we think might be of help to you, when next you attempt to pray.’ In ten minutes’ time he returned… and this was in his hand.”

Out of his cloak, Csevet drew a small item, which he passed to Maia. It was wrapped in a scrap of white linen and secured with a dark ribbon. Maia undid both to reveal a concave half-stone no more than three inches at its widest point. Its interior crystals glimmered faintly in the dim light. Set amid them was a little painted figurine of Cstheio Caireizhasan, her hair, ears, throat, and blue-black cloak sparkling with tiny semi-precious stones.

“A beautiful icon,” Maia said, staring down at it.

“And it is thine,” Csevet said, with an odd catch in his throat. “Happy birthday, Serenity.”

Maia raised his head and opened his mouth, the words _I do not wish —_ on the tip of his tongue. But there was a strange look in Csevet’s eyes, and he could not bring himself to say them. Instead, he looked down at the impossibly lovely icon in his hand and said, “The Archprelate gave this to thee, Csevet, to concentrate thy mind. I know quite well how to meditate; I would not take this from thee if it has proven helpful to thee in that regard.”

Csevet laughed. “I cannot believe the Archprelate would have given away such a thing to a mere secretary just to facilitate prayer.” He turned his head, then, to look out into the distance of peaks and snow, the darkness cloaking the former, the stars picking out their fellows within the latter. He seemed not to see any of these things at all as he added, “I suspect he knew I would bring it to thee, though at that moment I’d no thought of such a thing. The icon did help me focus my plan, and my will. But this is the first time I’ve taken it from my cloak pocket since I left Cetho.”

With Csevet’s attention seemingly far away, Maia took the opportunity to study his face. The inverted triangle of it stood out more starkly than usual, with his ears and shorn hair concealed by his hat. But at the same time the light of the moon and stars lay softly upon it, gentling that starkness. It was a finely pointed face; its bones were more delicate than those of the Drazhada, but cheekbones, nose, and chin all jutted with subtle, charming assertion. His slender brows were white, as were the lashes that heavily fringed his rain-colored eyes. And his mouth … Maia’s eyes darted away as his face heated, and he cursed his mind for throwing out words like _soft_ and _shapely_ and _like a bow._

He cursed, too, how little he knew of matters of life that ordinary folk like Rauviga and Ruathito seemed to understand intuitively.

His only education therein had been the scant basics Setheris had given him so that he would not father any bastards — _in the highly unlikely event wilt have the opportunity,_ his cousin had added acerbically. Which had been, if cruel, completely accurate before the _Wisdom of Choharo_ had fallen to earth. As emperor, he would — would have — have taken Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin to wife, but that had everything to do with his duties of continuing the Drazhada line, and nothing to do with his appeal to her. Or to women on the whole.

He’d never considered how he might appeal to men.

He was no marnis, as his reactions to Hesero Nelaran and especially Min Vechin had surely proven. But he could not deny that, from time to time, his loins would stir at the sight of certain men, whether in the flesh or illustrated in one of the yellow-backed novels Kevo had kept hidden from Setheris. Even a textual description of such a man could rouse him, he’d found to his dismayed surprise.

The last several months were forcing him to admit, if only to himself and grudgingly, that Csevet was such a man.

At first he’d not felt the attraction keenly. At their first meeting he’d been wakened abruptly from sleep, then besieged with the knowledge that his fathers and brothers were dead, the Ethuveraz was his to rule, and if he did not rule it he might soon join his kin in the grave. His nascent reign had brought with it far too many challenges for him to dwell much upon Csevet, other than how indispensable he was as a secretary. But brute circumstance had stripped away all the layers of formality between them. Laboring side by side, bathing side by side, sleeping side by side, even walking side by side for hours without a word — in all of this, Maia had come to note not only how clever and capable and trustworthy Csevet was, but also how lithe and strong and …

… beautiful he was.

And Maia? He might have been fortunate, as Setheris had said, to inherit his father’s bones and eyes, but his hair was dark and curly to the point of kinking, his skin was slate grey, and his frame was no sturdier than a river reed. And with this unwinsome appearance he paired the stammering ignorance of a man-boy raised in the back of beyond by a drunken lout of minor nobility and a handful of servants, with not another soul for company. No matter how loyal Csevet had proven to him, loyalty was not desire. Maia could not imagine himself inspiring the latter in Csevet at all.

He forced himself to abandon that bleak line of thought and turned his own face upward to a beauty that was not so bittersweet to behold. The night sky over Edonomee had never stinted him of stars, but even it could not compare to the endless expanse of black velvet studded with winking gems that lay over the Osreialhalans. He stroked a gloved thumb over the rough outer surface of the icon and thought of his short time at court, almost always spent indoors. Of course, the gaslights and candles of Cetho would have obscured the glories of Cstheio Caireizhasan. And he had been forbidden to go outdoors at Azharee. That Winternight had brought him not merely good food and wine, but camaraderie, conversation, this gorgeously wrought icon, and the breathtaking canvas of the heavens above — it could be nothing but propitious, could it not?

“Look!” Csevet suddenly breathed, pointing skyward. The star beyond his fingertip jetted across the blackness, leaving brilliance in its wake.

Maia stared, aware that he was gaping like the backwoods moonwit Setheris had named him so many times but unable to care at the moment. He thought at first of Akhalarna, who had left the heavens that he might live amongst those who venerated him until his mortal form gave out, thereby learning better of their joys and woes. But this was unlike to be the descent of another god, which had never happened before and which had never happened since. Falling stars were omens of their Lady, and a falling star on an occasion such as Winternight was as powerful yet as subtle a message from her as any that might be sent through the pneumatic tubes of the Alcethmeret.

“What think’st it means?” Csevet asked, his voice hushed.

“I cannot know,” Maia admitted as the star plummeted past the high horizon and out of their sight. “A cleric of Cstheio might, though my mother did say that they can’t know for sure, either, only make educated guesses. Yet I cannot believe it doesn’t portend something. Something great, be it for good or for ill.”

Csevet did not speak for a moment. Then he said quietly, “I suppose that once the Lady of the Stars has made up her mind, it would be fruitless to bid Salezheio that it be for good. And one doesn’t ask such of Cstheio in any case.”

Maia licked his lips, which were parchment-dry in the cold air, and said, “I suppose that an thou asked’st Salezheio for protection, whether or not she could provide it, she’d yet be pleased by thine attention. And the Archprelate himself would tell thee that couldst still ask the Lady of the Falling Stars for the sight to discern the meaning, and the wisdom to face whatever the gods bring.”

Csevet did not reply. Maia did not look at him again, not wishing to rekindle his useless longing. They instead both stood leaning against the stable and looking up into the night, until Csevet finally said, “I am positively aching with the cold. We should return.”

“We should,” Maia agreed, slipping the icon into the pocket of his own cloak.

In the parlor one candle burned, Foduama and Khram were absent, and Rauviga and Ruathito lay asleep and entwined under a blanket with their clothing piled on the floor. Csevet took the candle with him to the couch nearest the rear passage to the kitchen, and once Maia had curled up on that nearest the parlor’s front wall, the flame went out with a soft huff. For a very long time Maia lay awake, listening to the easy breaths of sleep all about him, and stared up into the darkness that cloaked the low ceiling above as if Cstheio Caireizhasan might send a second omen shooting from it.

***

Nine days after Winternight came the Lady’s answer.

They were shoveling snow from the far end of the walkway when the dull pounding of heavy pony hooves penetrated through Maia’s hat. Csevet, he saw, had already raised his head, and there was a stiffness to his shoulders.

The man riding toward them was a full-blooded _Thu,_ and he wore regular workman’s clothes, not courier’s leathers, under his cloak. Csevet seemed to relax a bit upon the sight; Maia wondered if he had feared being recognized.

“Hail!” the rider said, drawing near. His accent was of central Thu-Cethor. “Have you heard the news from the Ethuveraz?”

Maia pulled his hat down more tightly around his face and ears. Csevet was the one to reply: “We haven’t, no. What’s toward?”

“There was a second coup at Winternight. The princess and the chancellor who overthrew the new emperor have themselves been deposed. Their corpses hang naked from the walls outside the Untheileneise Court, for the ravens to pick off frozen bits.”

Maia’s brows shot skyward, and under his hat his ears took the opposite trajectory. Csevet dug his shortened nails into Maia’s shoulder through his cloak, and Maia let the pain focus him, steady him.

“Who deposed them?” Csevet asked warily.

The messenger took a deep breath. “The son of Duke Tethimel of Thu-Athamar. Dach’osmer Eshevis Tethimar. Varenechibel the Fifth, formerly Prince Idra, remains emperor in name — but in fact, Eshevis Tethimar rules as regent.”

“Are the princess’s daughters still alive?” Csevet’s voice trembled ever so faintly on the final word.

The rider seemed not to notice. “The little dach’osmichen have disappeared. And Edrehasivar’s First Nohecharei with them.”

The force with which Maia’s heart began to gallop could have propelled him several feet forward. His innards began to constrict, to fill with an icy mist. _Idra,_ he thought, slipping his hand into his cloak pocket to clutch tightly at the icon of Cstheio. _Mireän. Ino. Cala. Beshelar._ And then, although she was no longer Tethimar’s path to power: _Vedero._

And he knew only two things now: that if he were to return now, he would be in far more danger than before. And that this mattered not, for he absolutely must return.

“We thank you,” Csevet said gravely. “If you continue on to the house with your news, the cook will set out a meal for you, and you may bathe as well.”

The rider touched the brim of his fur hat. “Thank you. Forgive us for bearing ill tidings. It’s hard to come by trustworthy news from Cetho these days, and the eastern Ethuveraz is at such a pitch that you may soon see refugees come over the border seeking shelter.”

 _Merciful goddesses._ Maia’s noonday meal churned in his stomach. But the strong, steady feeling of _I must return_ did not at all abate.

“We’re grateful for the tidings, ill or not,” Csevet said. “The gods be with you upon your return south.”

The messenger touched his hat again and rode off toward the house. Maia clutched at Csevet’s arm. Csevet turned to him, his face blanched of every hint of color, his pupils like pinpricks.

“I must go back,” Maia said.

 _“No!”_ The syllable ripped out of Csevet’s throat with more vehemence than Maia had ever heard from him.

Maia felt his ears twitch beneath his hat, then flatten to his head. “I have no choice, Csevet! My nephew is in danger, my nieces are as well, my sister—”

“Ber— _Maia. Listen to me.”_ Csevet had grasped Maia by the forearms. “The monks at Azharee would have raised the alarm as soon as they found thee gone and the assassin dead. We escaped to Celvaz because they’d no airship and could not quickly send a rider south this time of year. But by now? The mountains must be crawling with soldiers and —” he shuddered — “scent hounds. Sheveän and Chavar wouldn’t have assumed thee dead without proof, and neither will Tethimar. And art not trained at arms, at strategy, at espionage, at anything of the kind! Even if we earn through to Cetho, what wilt do but put thyself in further danger and leave one less piece for Tethimar to strike from the playing board?”

Maia shook Csevet’s hands from him. “We are the lawful emperor of the Ethuveraz!” He had enough self-possession not to shout the words, but they came out in something like a roar, a voice that Maia didn’t recognize as belonging to himself. “We cannot let the Tethimada take it! That man, Eshevis Tethimar — he is not fit to lead the country!”

Maia’s desperate rage checked, suddenly and with bewilderment, when Csevet uttered a bark of near-hysterical laughter. Csevet’s voice was steadier when he added, “Believe me when I say I know this,” but his eyes remained wild, his face drained of blood.

A memory surfaced. “Thou once said’st thou hast a grudge against him,” Maia said, more quietly and more slowly. “From thy courier days.” Csevet’s ferocious blush came back to mind, too. It did not show itself again; if anything, Csevet’s pallor had taken on a greenish tinge. “Please, Csevet. Tell me.”

Something seemed to unspool in Csevet. Not his tension, not his fear, but a barrier of some kind. He took a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly.

And he told Maia the entire story.

“Merciful goddesses,” Maia said, feeling as nauseated as Csevet still looked. “What think’st they would have done to thee, had they caught thee?”

Csevet stared at him for a moment. Disbelief contended with remembered horror in his eyes, and then they narrowed faintly. “What think’st _thou_ they’d have done to me, had they caught me? Thou know’st, yes, that a man can violate another man as easily as he can a woman, as Thuikis and Gatsuoga had intended for me? A boy, even more easily? And that an unarmed man, let alone boy, has little chance of defending himself successfully against a crowd of men who hunger for such sport?”

The shame crashed over Maia in waves. “Csevet — forgive me. I — I should never have asked you that question.”

“No — forgive _me._ Maia. Serenity.” Csevet was staring down at the snow now, and despite his emphasis on the final word his voice was low and miserable. “No matter how we’ve lived for the last few months, I do not forget you are mine emperor. Recounting the tale, on the heels of that news, has stirred old emotions in me I prefer to let lie, but it was no reason to give you the edge of my tongue.”

“Csevet,” Maia said sharply. “I owe thee my life. I asked this story of thee, and I repaid thee with a oafish question. And … and, in utter sooth, I did _not_ know… that. I know nothing of these things, nothing of marnei. It would not have even occurred to me.”

Csevet closed his eyes. “It’s nothing to do with marnei, and all to do with … sport, as I said. Dach’osmer Tethimar and his ‘Hounds’ would have done that to a girl courier as well, perhaps even more eagerly.” He did not sound indignant any longer, merely exhausted.

“It will perhaps dishearten thee further to know that hast not lessened mine intent to return to Cetho one bit,” Maia said. “Hast strengthened it, if nothing else. My family is in danger of even more violence than I’d have imagined.”

Csevet seemed to sway slightly on his feet. He opened his eyes, and they were pits of despair. But all he said was, “I’d expected no less of thee.” He paused, and then, even more quietly, he said, “We’ll spend one last night here in Celvaz, and I’ll make a clean breast with Foduama in the morning.”

***

“Why didst not tell me in the first place?” Foduama demanded, every line in his face and body straining like a bowstring before the shot.

“I did not wish to put thee, or Khram, in more danger than was necessary,” Csevet said, his voice measured, as Maia stood off to the side of them. “I—”

“‘More danger than was necessary’? Hast endangered me and mine simply by bringing him here!” Foduama snapped. “What difference would telling me have made?”

“That couldst not be questioned for information by Ethuverazheise soldiers or spies,” Csevet replied, hardening his voice without raising it.

“Come such men over the border, I’ll be questioned either way if they learn you two sought me out — and Khram, too, to force me to speak! Thou cared’st how much I could betray you, Csevet. Not for my safety, not for that of my wife!” Foduama’s voice cracked on the final word. “Gods, I’ve always known wert ambitious, but I never suspected would’st deceive me so!”

Csevet was Ulis-pale, but he flinched so hard from the words that Maia, for a moment, imagined the red imprint of a great hand across his cheek. “Foduama. Please believe that I am deeply sorry. I … I did not wish to test thy regard of me this way,” he said, slowly, his voice as neutral as his eyes were agonized. “Mine emperor was in danger, and so was — is — my country. I have done what I could, as a _Thu,_ to protect both. I swear to thee, I did not once think I might be sacrificing thee for either.”

“I know thee better than that,” Foduama said, with a sadness in his eyes that echoed painful and hollow in Maia’s gut. “Cunning enough for three, thou art and always hast been. Wouldst have considered every branching path thine actions could have taken thee down before sett’st thy right foot on the path north.”

“Foduama,” Csevet said again, letting the name trail off on his lips, before he continued: “Thou art mine old friend, and I love thee dearly.” He paused. “But he is mine emperor, and I serve him. I have killed for him. I am bound to him.”

Foduama said nothing for a long, long moment. He continued to regard Csevet sadly, and his sadness made Maia ache for Csevet far more than Foduama’s rage would have done. Finally the big _Cel_ said, his voice now subdued, “I saw the shadows in thine eyes when first you came here. The kind one sees in men who’ve been to war, or had war visited upon them. I thought, after told’st me of the coup, perhaps I’d been mistaken; perhaps it was only fear and hunger and exhaustion. But I see my hunch was right. There’s blood on thy hands.” When Csevet opened his mouth again, Foduama cut him off with a sharp wave. “I don’t judge thee for that. Wert never violent except to defend thyself, and I … I must imagine wouldst not kill without good reason. But…” He stopped, and he sighed. “Csevet, in sooth, art not the lad I knew in Cetho anymore.”

Csevet dropped his head. His ears nearly skimmed his shoulders. There was a long silence. At last he raised his head and said in a hoarse whisper, “No. I am not, Foduama.”

Foduama sighed again, even more heavily. He said, “Have you food for your journey?”

“I made up a bundle in the kitchens,” Csevet said leadenly. “It’s outside in the snow.”

“Then I wish you both farewell.” The words were softly spoken, but the pale blue eyes were like steel.

Csevet nodded. His face was, once again, shuttered. “Many thanks,” he said, the words flat and dull. Then a spark flared in his eyes. “My debt to you is immense, Foduama. I will pay it back in full some day.”

Foduama put his broad hand over his face. “Csevet… please. Just go,” he said brokenly.

Csevet turned his head to Maia. His eyes cut into Maia’s heart like glass shards. Maia began to follow him, then stopped. “Foduama,” he said. “The debt is mine as well as Csevet’s. I will not forget it.”

Foduama did not remove his hand from his face or otherwise acknowledge Maia had spoken. Maia stood there, breathing in the scents of rose and lily and Star of Csaivo for the last time, and it was not until several breaths past the point of awkwardness that Csevet tugged gently at his elbow and said, “Come.”


	6. Return to the Elflands

They spoke not a word to one another as they walked the three miles back toward Foduama’s house, toward the Great Plateau. Maia’s heart squeezed painfully as they passed the projecting overhang. Then they retraced their path from weeks before, uphill this time. The streams were even more solid, the valleys clogged more thickly with snow. The plateau looked no different than before, but Maia could take no interest or joy now in the stark beauty all about them.

They trudged on for an hour before they once again approached the sign marking the boundary between Celvaz and the Ethuveraz. Every shortened curl on Maia’s scalp seemed to straighten as they passed it, as though a thousand spears and arrows were aimed at him and Csevet from above. In Csevet’s posture and stride he could perceive a matching tension. But no arrows sang, no spears thudded, no soldiers shouted; he continued to hear nothing more than the wind between the mountains and, once, the cry of a bird of prey.

It was another half-hour’s walk before Maia spoke the first words between them since they had left Foduama in the greenhouse: “Perhaps all the soldiers who were not already fighting on the steppes have been assigned to keep order in the cities and towns.”

After a moment, Csevet replied, his words measured: “I would very much like to take heart in that thought. But I do not wish to trust so greatly in our luck. We must take care that when we seek out a place to sleep for the night, no soldiers are lodged there.”

Beyond another brief word or two as they shared out the day’s meal or quenched their thirst, they did not speak again until the sun was sinking low. Then Csevet said, “This way,” and led Maia off the plateau onto a winding uphill path that ended at an unwalled village.

This one had at least four more cabins than the previous one had had, and its communal building was larger. But Maia caught no woodsmoke on the breeze, no voices of men or women or children, no noises of animals, no sign of activity at all. Several cabin doors swung in the wind, and snow had drifted into the entryways. The only living thing in sight was a raven, in the open space ringed by the cabins, picking in the snow among the rounded ends of bones and pulling loose a tatter of something mottled dark blue.

Maia shuddered. “Do ogres return to…” he began, then trailed off.

“Sometimes, yes,” Csevet said grimly. “If we can find the root cellar, we’d do best to shelter there, where an ogre is less likely to scent us.” He paused. “Or soldiers to spot us. But I’d first like to peek into the main cabin and see an there’s aught we might safely scavenge.”

With its door wide open, that cabin was as cold within as the air was without. Maia could hear squeaking and skittering as they entered. “Bar the door, please,” Csevet said, fishing in his cloak pocket, and Maia obeyed. Flint struck against steel, illuminating tiny furry shapes as they disappeared into the wall-chinks. The family’s pallets had been gnawed into and their straw was scattered over the dirt floor, mixed with rodent droppings and the spoor of larger beasts. There was no food in sight, but Maia supposed that the invading animals would have already eaten anything the inhabitants had left behind.

“At least,” Csevet said, as though reading Maia’s thoughts, “no insects are about in winter.”

Maia thought of what lay under the snow outside, and he shuddered again. “Have — had they a root cellar beneath this cabin? Or would it be beneath the communal building?”

“Neither, I’d wager, but completely separate from all the buildings.” With his free hand Csevet picked up an empty pot and overturned it, shaking it a few times. “Easier and more stable than trying to dig building foundations into mountain rock. Might I please ask thee to gather up the bedclothes from the largest pallet and shake them out of any filth? I don’t wish to accidentally set them alight. I’ll fill the pot with snow outside.”

With the day dimming and the wind forcing Csevet to restrike his light multiple times, it took them a good twenty minutes to find the cellar. The low door was set into a rounded outcropping of rock, and Maia thought of the dwellings of the “small folk” in the wonder-tales his mother had told him. The door was snugly shut but had not been locked, and in such dry air it did not stick in its jamb. Maia was forced to drop to his hands and knees to pass through it, and Csevet to duck his head as he closed the door behind them. Before them was a stone stairway, with a recess cut into the wall on either side in lieu of a railing. Maia had to crouch for the first few steps down, but by the time they reached the bottom he could stand up straight.

The cellar was surprisingly large given its modestly sized ingress, and quite cool, though much warmer than the air outside. There were not only bins of vegetables and dried fruits, but dried herbs and smoked sausages hanging from racks, and sacks of beans and grains on the floor. Lining the walls were shelves bearing numerous jars of edibles put up for the winter, as well as bottles of metheglin, wine, barley beer, and stronger liquors brewed from other grains or from roots.

Maia piled the bedclothes on the floor, and their cloaks and hats joined the pile. Carefully away from it, Csevet struck another flame under the pot and held it there until the snow was mostly melted. He then lit a small squat candle that was on one of the shelves, and they picked out a jar of hard-boiled eggs and another of pickled stringbeans. Ravenous as they were, they made short work of both jars, using the tips of their blades for forks, and they washed the meal down with watered wine.

“We should sleep,” Csevet said, stifling a yawn. “Or try to. We can replenish our reserves when we awaken, before we set out again.”

Maia stretched out on the pile of bedclothes on his side and pulled his cloak over his body. At first it seemed comfortable, but as the chill seeped up from the dirt floor through the linens he began to shiver, then to clutch at his own torso. Csevet, who was on his feet to blow out the candle on the shelf, heard Maia’s teeth begin to chatter and looked down at him, his ears quivering. It was hard to tell in the scant light of the candle, but Maia thought he could perceive Csevet’s face flush with color.

“An dost — if you do not mind, Serenity… we can sleep up against one another beneath the cloaks, for warmth.”

If Csevet were indeed blushing, it was contagious. Maia could not say he _objected,_ not precisely, but he remembered their rides between Foduama’s house and Parugo, and he was filled with a certain apprehension of how his body would respond to the feel of Csevet completely flush against him.

“…Serenity?” Csevet asked quietly, a note of anxiety in his voice and his ears beginning to droop.

Maia was jarred to decisiveness. “I am not averse to such an arrangement,” he said, pointedly refusing any renewal of formality between them with no one else about to hear. “However, I cannot promise thee I will not … suffer from …” He bit his lip. _Edrehasivar Half-Tongue, thou truly art._ “… from certain… bodily reactions. I — I do not wish to impose anything on thee, Csevet.”

Csevet did not speak for several long seconds, Maia’s face and ears burning harder with each as it passed. Finally he said, “It is no imposition. It’s simply how the body often reacts to the proximity of another. I’ve slept close-pressed to many a fellow courier in a sleeping roll or in a bed in a drafty inn. One or the other of us would usually … react so, while still awake, and of course it’s a normal thing in sleep, alone or otherwise.”

The tension in Maia’s breast eased, though only slightly. Measuring out his words, he said, “If canst overlook such a … reaction, I am content with the arrangement.”

Csevet nodded, not meeting his eyes. The candle went out in his soft huff of breath, plunging the cellar into blackness. Maia heard his movements in the dark as he made his own place on the pallet and pulled his own cloak over himself. Then he felt him inch backward until the plane of his back was flush to Maia’s chest. Tentatively, something in him still dreading an indignant refusal, Maia reached out his arm to drape it over Csevet — and uttered a soft gasp when Csevet seized his arm, pulled it in against his own body, and folded his own arm over it.

“There,” came Csevet’s velvet whisper. “Snug and warm.”

Warm, indeed. Especially the rounded warmth of Csevet’s buttocks once again pressed to Maia’s groin, and the warm smell of his scalp against Maia’s nose, and the warm brush of his ear against the line of Maia’s jaw. Desire surged in Maia as if that whisper had broken a dam, and his fierce longing for Csevet contended with his embarrassment. But, true to his earlier words, Csevet did not shy away, nor did his body stiffen at the prodding of his emperor’s importunate cockstand. His form grew more and more relaxed against Maia, and at some point his breathing became so soft and even that Maia very much doubted he remained awake.

Maia, however, seemed to have been pinned to the waking world by the shaft of his rampant cock. The idea of pushing Csevet away that he could roll over and take himself in hand, Csevet still close by, was not only mortifying to ponder but, even more mortifyingly, _exciting._ He grit his teeth and forced himself to think of other things. Piles of ordure in the Parugo stables. Setheris’s drunken ramblings punctuated by an occasional wet-sounding belch. The shriveled, jiggling genitalia of the Rishoneise elders in the bathhouse. That last image did the trick, and it also forced a highly unimperial giggle out of him. His ears might have been fooling him, but he could have sworn he heard a soft chuckle from Csevet in response.

The chuckle flowed on and on until it melted into a breathy assurance: _Needst not be ashamed with me._ Csevet’s lips lingered at the edge of Maia’s ear, his tongue making tiny soft strokes upon it that turned everything inside Maia to liquid fire. _Let me please thee, Maia, let me make thee feel good._ His left hand was at Maia’s nape, where his fingers echoed the strokes of his tongue, and the palm of his right smoothed itself over the insides of Maia’s shaking thighs, sliding upward to cradle his stones. _Please,_ Maia whimpered, feeling the early seed well up and begin to trickle out of him. _Please, Csevet._ He was not even sure he knew what he was begging for, other than that Csevet do something other than continue to draw him up into a fine, quivering point of heat. And Csevet, with a smile Maia could not see in the dark but could feel, could hear, slid his hand even further upward and —

Maia’s entire body jolted.

Blinking, he tried to piece together the puzzle of where he was and how he’d gotten there, which was a challenge from within a fog of sensual satiation. Oh. Yes. The desolate village. The root cellar. Csevet. And…

He grimaced. He supposed his body had solved its dilemma on its own, but it presented him with a new one: cleansing himself, with no private place to do so that was not bitterly cold, and very likely with no towels or rags. Nor would he likely have an immediate opportunity to do so, given that Csevet’s form remained slack and quiet against his own, and the longer he waited, the more … difficult the cleansing would be.

He sighed inwardly. _That this were my greatest worry._ And he let himself drift off again, his body limp and content against Csevet’s.

When he woke again his mind felt clearer, the space beneath the cloaks not as warm; he perceived light in the cellar and heard the clinking of glass. He turned his head to see Csevet on his feet, making up a bundle from the cellar’s reserves in an empty sack.

“Canst carry that all day?” Maia asked skeptically, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Of course,” Csevet said without hesitation, not turning around. “A courier’s rucksack can be quite heavy at times, and sometimes one’s horse must be left behind.”

“I insist upon carrying some of it, Csevet.”

“An I tire, I’ll let thee know,” Csevet said blithely, and Maia perceived no advantage to pressing his insistence. Instead he peered about the cellar again and was relieved to notice a few rags draped over the edge of a bin in one corner of the cellar. He rather doubted they would be _entirely_ clean, but perhaps they would be clean enough. 

As he rose from the linen pile, Csevet turned his head. “I … wish to wash a bit,” Maia said, refusing to meet Csevet’s eyes.

“There’s still water in the pot,” Csevet said. “But there’s no soap. I suppose couldst water down the grain liquor a bit…”

Maia flinched. “That won’t be necessary,” he said stiffly. Csevet made no reply. Relieved, Maia gathered up both pot and rags, turned his back to Csevet in that corner, and unbuttoned his trousers. The rags were, as he had hoped, clean enough to accomplish his purpose, and he folded them as discreetly as he could before leaving them on the floor.

They ate a quick breakfast, then ascended the stairs. Csevet insisted Maia remain at its halfway point until he had taken a thorough look around for ogres or soldiers. Having determined they were still safe, he beckoned to Maia, who scuttled through the door like a beetle again and got to his feet in the snow outside.

The day was not as solemn as the previous, nor as the one after they had escaped the ogre. But Csevet remained mostly silent behind the mask of his face. Maia thought of Foduama, and did not press. His own debt to the big _Cel_ was no less than Csevet’s; he might not have had years of friendship with him, but he had far more power.

If he ever regained it.

He pushed his dark thoughts aside and focused on their journey. The sun dazzled upon the ice, hawks swooped overhead, and every so often white moved on white to betray the presence of a mountain cat or fox. Maia alternated his appreciation for the gods’ creations with a silent version of his mother’s mantra: _Cstheio Caireizhasan, hear me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, see me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, know me._ And though one could not see the Lady’s Stars in the daytime, only that of Anmura, the two of them walked so high above the rest of the world that Maia felt he could almost reach up and touch his fingertips to them through the brilliant blue.

Long into the afternoon, Csevet said, “I’d fain stop at Rishonee again for the night.” Maia turned his head sharply, and Csevet continued: “I don’t wish to retrace our path entirely; we’d do well to work our way west as well as south, where soldiers are less likely to be expecting us and where we’re more likely to find shelter and food. But we’ve made friends of the Rishonada. Be there any news in the Osreialhalans, they’ll know it. And we’ve enough in the rucksack that, this time, we can contribute to the evening meal.”

“And if Rishonee has been overtaken by soldiers?”

The line of Csevet’s mouth flattened. “I’m not sure we have a choice. We were fortunate last night to find food and shelter with nothing to menace us, nor even any mountain folk or refugees from the south who might have heard that the regent seeks a goblin and an elf last seen in these parts nearly two months ago. For all we know there’s a reward on our heads.”

“Art certain Veris Rishonar would not turn us in for such a reward?” Maia pressed, a vague dread building in his abdomen.

“I cannot swear to complete certainty, no. But that man has no love for the Untheileneise Court, nor would he wish to go abroad to spend its gold. If nothing else, for him to do so would further entice his young son to leave the village someday.”

Before long they were walking up the path toward Rishonee. The watchman at the gate gave a start at the sight of them, which made Maia’s belly clench with fear and Csevet’s shoulders stiffen. Then the man beckoned to them.

“Would he betray us? Should we run?” Maia whispered.

“An we did, we’d not get far,” Csevet muttered. “Might as well go in.”

There seemed to be no soldiers about. The watchman whistled and ordered the small boy who immediately appeared to direct the visitors to the house of Veris Rishonar. Yet Maia could not shake his dread until Biteän Rishonaran answered the boy’s knock and nearly swooned with relief — and then a new fear seized him, for her reaction could mean only that she now knew who they were. That soldiers had been in Rishonee.

“You’re safe,” she breathed, then seemed to gather her wits and added a sharp, “Come in. Quickly.”

When they emerged into the light of the fire, Hithera uttered an exultant cry from the shadows — and a wide-eyed Taris threw himself onto the floor in prostration. Veris, at his place hard by the fire, rolled his eyes. “Get thou up, boy.”

Taris lifted his head, his brow furrowed. “But Papa —”

“No knee bends in this house except to the gods,” Veris snapped, his ears flattening to his skull. “What’s more, thou _may’st_ have noticed, he no longer sits his throne. He and his man are our guests. They are not our lords.”

Taris, shame-faced and low-eared, rose from the rushes and retook his place on the other side of his father from the fire. “Now,” Veris said. “Have you eaten? The evening meal’s nearly done, but there’s enough stew in the pot, we think, for two more.”

“We have not,” Csevet said, unloading the bundle of provisions. “May we offer the lady of the house aught in return?” Toward the rear of the room, Biteän’s eyes widened.

“You may offer what gifts you like after you’ve eaten. But do not shame us by regarding them as payment for supper, which is our obligation to you.” Veris beckoned in his wife’s and daughters’ direction. “Milu, ladle thou out two bowls for these men.”

When Csevet and Maia were settled by the hearth with their bowls, Veris spoke again. “So. We suppose it needn’t be said at this juncture that soldiers from Cetho came here in search of you.”

“When?” Maia asked grimly.

“Perhaps a week and a half since you last passed through.” Veris spat into the fire. “High-handed wretches. Sneered in our face, would not acknowledge our wife, backhanded one of our michen, took liberties with our daughter.” Maia, alarmed, pivoted his head in Milu’s direction and got a glimpse of her flaming face and fallen ears before she dropped her head.

“Nay,” Veris said quickly. “It was not what you think —” He paused, then quirked one brow. “Mer Drazhar? Or go you still by Mer Honithar?”

“Whichever you prefer, Mer Rishonar,” Maia said wearily. _Mer Drazhar_ sounded surpassingly odd to his ears; he could not even parse _Mer_ as a form of address before his family name.

“In any event: they merely grabbed at Milu to spite us, flaunt their power over us. We and Taris and one of our bondsmen who happened to be present put enough fear into them — it was just two soldiers — that they backed down, though they had swords and we’d only small knives. We did hear they forced a young woman in another village, days later. She’s fortunate that her husband refuses to put her aside.”

Maia thought of a younger Csevet lying bloody-mouthed on cold stones in a torchlit courtyard; Idra cowering under a tall, broad shadow; Vedero slammed up against a wall. He could not at that moment force himself to continue eating his supper. Csevet, whose face was once again of stone, asked, “What did you tell them of us, Mer Rishonar?”

“That we’d seen no passers-by at all. We were not minded to betray you to begin with. We realized you could have been fleeing true justice, but that is not our judgment to make, and it was far more likely you were fleeing the absence of justice. When the soldiers made it clear what they thought of us, it hardened our resolve.”

Veris paused. “Most Osreialhalaneisei would share these sentiments. But we cannot promise that none has betrayed you. The watchman saw you, the first time you came here. He would have mentioned it to his kinfolk as the most exciting thing to befall him all day. His wife would have told it to her friends, and one of them might have passed it along in another village when visiting her sister, and so it goes.”

“Understood,” Csevet said flatly. “So they’ve not since returned?”

“Not here,” Veris said. “Not that we’re aware of. Other villages, we cannot say.”

Csevet closed his eyes. Maia said gravely, “Thank you, Mer Rishonar, for protecting us.” Switching from plural to formal, he added, “We will not forget our debt.”

Veris snorted. “Pray you live long enough to recall it. Were it we in your boots, we’d have stayed in Celvaz.”

Fear settled onto Maia’s nape and shoulders like a cloak of ice. But he said, “Once we had heard the new tidings from Cetho, we knew we could not stay.”

The chieftain studied Maia’s face, a hard and scrutinizing look. Maia held his gaze. Veris finally said, “You are a fool.”

 _“Husband!”_ Biteän exclaimed.

Veris ignored her. “We hasten to add that you are a valiant fool. But a fool nonetheless.”

Maia drew himself up and said, his voice hardening, “Mer Rishonar. It is not simply the Elflands that is in great danger. So are our nephew, our nieces, and our sister, for their virtue _and_ their lives. You and your son and your man ‘put fear’ into two soldiers for … for simply groping your daughter, and they had swords in their belts and an imperial writ in their hands. Think you we would let our kin be ravished and murdered?”

Veris gave him a scathing look. “Three men with short blades against two with long is more or less a matched fight. How, precisely, are you and your man matched against the regent and all his powers?”

“We do not know,” Maia said, his voice still like flint. “But we must try. Others might, as well. But we are the heir to the throne, and we can do no less.”

There was a long silence in the cabin, broken only by the snap of the flames and a quiet whine from one of the small michen. Finally, a wavering voice came from behind Veris: “Papa… I wish to go with them.”

 _“No!”_ Veris and Biteän burst out at once, and Milu followed upon that word with a pitiful cry of, _“Taris!”_

“I… I wish to,” Taris repeated, his voice seeming to gather strength. “I’m no swordfighter, but I can wield a short blade well enough. Not to mention a bow and arrow. And I know the passes well, and I can lead them anywhere they desire.”

“Our eldest son should be at our side,” Veris said, and though he had regained his composure his voice simmered with fury. “Not seeking adventure among fools, against debauched murderers who’d soon as strike his head from his shoulders as look at him.”

Taris spread his hands. “Papa, it’s a hard winter already. Here I’m but another mouth to feed, and in sooth the tribute portions you’ll get from other hunters in Rishonee can make up for any game I could bring down. And I would be defending not only the Ethuveraz, but Rishonee too. The regent will likely send his soldiers here again, an he not be defeated, and then there’ll be refugees to house.”

“These men told us that refugees are not likely to come here, remember’st not?”

“At the time, that was true,” Maia said. “But, as bad as the rule of the Princess Sheveän and Uleris Chavar was, that of Eshevis Tethimar is already and will be far worse. Those two were, at least… ” He paused, then said despairingly, “…sane.”

“Oh, Cstheio Caireizhasan!” Biteän wailed. 

Maia’s insides curled in upon themselves at her cry. “Merrem Rishonaran,” he said, rising from the hearth. Without thinking he moved to stand before her, then dropped to his knees, took her weathered hand in his, and kissed the back of it.

She looked down upon him in bewilderment through her incipient tears. “Seren— Mer Drazh —” She gave up on the proper address. “Why do you lower yourself so to a common woman? It is not fitting!”

“Because we wish to serve, not merely rule, the Ethuveraz,” Maia said heatedly, the words coming to his lips without forethought. “You are our subject. We owe you, and your husband and children and village, and every soul in every village and town and city across the Elflands, far better than who — _what_ — rules in Cetho now.” His voice thickened. “If we did not try, how would we live with the shame? We would watch in safety from Celvaz, and our honor would wither away, and with it our mind.”

She said nothing, merely stared down blinking at him. No one else in the cabin spoke a single word for a long, long moment.

Then Csevet said, “Merrem… it is true, we are but two against many, neither of us trained for war. But,” and he switched to the formal, “as a courier, we survived many things we should never have. The Lady Salezheio may yet smile upon us. His Serenity has endured a trial by fire — or by ice, we should say. As you can see, he is stronger in body than when last you saw him. And, though the details are not fit for the ears of women or michen, he has proven that our loyalty to him is returned.”

A new thickness filled Maia’s throat. He relinquished Biteän’s hand, stood, and returned to sit at the hearth beside Csevet.

After another lengthy silence, Veris said resignedly, “Taris, art man-grown. We can express our opinion of thine intentions, but we cannot forbid thee from carrying them out. If wish’st to accompany these men and fight for them, do so” — his voice hitched ever so slightly — “and come back to us whole.” In the dim, Biteän sniffled, and there was a sob from what sounded like Milu.

“Merrem,” Csevet said again quickly. “Please, might we share with you some of our provisions? Your family has been so kind to us, and we are bound southwest, where it will be easier to find bed and board.”

He opened the bundle, and there were exclamations at the riches of foodstuffs within. Biteän protested, at first genuinely, then as etiquette demanded. Ultimately she accepted a jar of preserved garlic scapes, a length of summer sausage, and a little flask of metheglin; she refused anything else that Csevet or Maia tried to press upon her. “Did you carry all this down from Celvaz?” she asked.

“Nay, Merrem,” Csevet said. We sheltered last night in a root cellar in another village… one that, sadly, was destroyed by ogres some time back.”

“That was likely Talorathee,” Veris said. “Cizhera Talorathar was even more of a fool than your liege lord here. He’d more than enough wealth to have a wall built, but never did. ‘Next year,’ he’d always say. ‘Next year, we will have a wall put up.’ Next year never came for him. The ogre did, instead.”

“We wonder if it were the same ogre that nearly killed us the night after we stayed with you last,” Csevet said.

Veris’s brows shot up. “The gods’ own luck, you two have. It could have been. Were you sheltering at Paödo? Little cluster of run-down shacks, wall tumbled down around them, not worthy to be called ‘village’?”

“With no one else about but an old woman deep in her cups?” Csevet asked.

“Aye, that was old Trasaän. Terrible.” Veris shook his head. “Though it might have been a mercy in the end.”

“Did her family abandon her?” Maia asked, the revulsion at her memory competing with an overwhelming sense of pity.

“Nay, not exactly. Paödo has been a tumbledown nest for the ne’er-do-wells of this part of the Osreialhalans since time out of mind: drunkards, whores, thieves, oath-breakers, those who simply cannot abide having others about. In the last several years it was only Trasaän there. A woeful life, that woman had, between her father and her husband. Not that she had no kin to care for her after her husband died, but she would not quit the metheglin, and she was a violent and foul-mouthed one when she drank. Her children feared for their own children and threatened to cast her out, so she chose to take herself off to Paödo to brew metheglin, tend the animals, and dwell in a stupor until the day Ulis took her.”

Maia stared down at the rushes as he thought of Setheris. His cousin had noble blood, a fine education, and Hesero on his side. But, had the _Wisdom of Choharo_ never crashed, would Maia have one day come into the parlor at Edonomee and found him motionless on the floor, shards of his drinking-glass cutting into his palm but drawing no blood?

Shortly thereafter, Taris led them to the bathhouse again, this time shedding clothes and boots alongside them. It was earlier on in the men’s bathing time than it had been on Maia and Csevet’s previous visit, and the tub was more crowded. But as a naked Taris led his naked guests to its rim, the din of conversation dropped precipitously.

“Fair evening, Taris,” a man somewhere between youth and middle age said; he was accompanied by a boy of about ten. “We see your father’s guests have returned.”

“For one night, aye, Zhida,” Taris said, sliding into the tub. “They depart in the morning, and we with them.”

The bath went silent, except for one small boy who was splashing about excitedly in a far corner. Another man said, “And what has your father to say to that, Taris?”

Taris raised his head and gave his interlocutor a stony stare. “We are man-grown, and our father trusts our judgment in this wise.”

Nobody challenged him, although Maia could catch a very soft scoff or two amid the splashes. But no one spoke to Taris again, and no one spoke to either Maia or Csevet at all. Maia could feel the suspicious heat of numerous eyes burning into his skin, hotter than the water, and for very different reasons than the last time he had bathed at Rishonee he could not wait to be clean, clad, and walking out the door.

That door had barely closed behind them when, even under his hat, his ears picked up the buzz of frantically resumed conversation within. As they made their way back to the cabin, Maia said in the formal, “We are full sore, Taris, to have become a bone of contention between you and the other Rishoneisei.”

Taris did not speak for a moment, and Maia worried that he himself had spoken out of turn. Then the young man said, “It is … not that alone, Serenity. They were discomfited by your and Mer Zhero— Mer Aisava’s reappearance, for they do fear soldiers. But … they are alarmed that we ourself have chosen to leave the village. They know not what to expect.”

“But… your father is hale, and not that old,” Maia said, consternated. “And you have younger brothers.”

“It does not matter,” Taris said glumly. “We are the chieftain’s oldest son. We were — are — expected to take our father’s place by the hearth when he goes to Ulis. They see us as repudiating our duty. Or, perhaps they wonder an we have so offended our father that he would cast us out.”

“But you can return!” Maia exclaimed, biting back the words _if Cstheio Caireizhasan permits._

“Serenity …” Taris trailed off at first, then said haltingly, “A man never truly returns to the Osreialhalans after he has left it. It is a different place, and he is not the same man.”

Maia’s breast ached. Would the Lady of the Stars preserve Taris, only to return him to Rishonee a stranger to his kin? Did Hithera already understand that this, too, would be his fate if ever he left the mountains?

Whatever the answers to these questions, Taris’s kin certainly seemed to be grieving his loss as though the youth they knew would never return to them. He spent a great deal of the remainder of the evening with at least one of his mother’s arms around him, she fighting back tears. Milu did not bother to conceal her own, and Taris seemed far more greatly affected by them. The michen clung to him with greater or lesser shows of comprehension and grief, depending on their age. Hithera seemed tense but, oddly, not disconcerted. Maia wondered if he were trying to suppress an unworthy jealousy of his elder brother.

Veris was inscrutable until morning, when Taris stood on the doorstep with Maia and Csevet. All three of them were cloaked, hatted, and in cleated boots, with woolen cloths pulled over the lower halves of their faces and woolen trousers within their leather ones. Taris’s bow and quiver were slung across the back of his cloak. Veris stood before them like a statue. Then, abruptly, he pulled his firstborn into a ferocious hug and said hoarsely, “Come back thou to me, son.”

Taris, his eyes glistening in the frail sunlight, whispered back, “I will, Papa. I will.”

***

This time they set out to the west, into the first mountain pass. In the deep shadows of the cliff walls on either side, they walked atop many feet of accumulated snow that had begun to compress under its own weight into ice. There was no sound but the quiet crunch of it under their cleats and the huffs of their own breaths. After half an hour they emerged again into daylight, but they reached the next pass before long. And the daylight itself grew thinner as clouds amassed above them, shifting under their burdens of snow. Pass after pass Taris led Maia and Csevet through, like a needle guiding a thread through several layers of heavy cloth.

“Serenity, Mer Aisava, we must all strike a careful balance,” he had warned them just after they had set out. “The less we sweat under our clothes, the better, for the clamminess draws the heat out of the body. Yet we must keep our blood moving through our veins. Wriggle your fingers and toes whenever you can, as often as you can.”

Maia supposed he should thank the Lady of the Stars not only for the cleats, which made their progress possible to begin with, but for how painstakingly slow it was overall. Taris often glanced at the snow ahead of them, judged it unable to bear the weight of even one man, and instead began to clamber up the snow-covered rocks at the foot of one cliff wall or the other. He would reach out his hand to Maia, who gripped Csevet’s in turn, and they would navigate their way around the death trap, the cold of every stone or ice handhold burning right through the tough leather of their gloves. Once they were on more or less stable footing again, Maia would wriggle his toes in his boots and his fingers in his gloves, then stroke the latter over the outer shell of the icon in his pocket in silent gratitude.

All the weeks of hard labor and constant walking in the thin air of the Osreialhalans had increased Maia’s strength and stamina considerably, but this terrain set his lungs and muscles to screaming anew. As before, he grit his teeth and pressed on, refusing to stop except for the brief midday meal and a few wholly unpleasant calls of nature. He was the reason they were on this journey, they could not afford to slow down, and he wanted nothing less than Csevet or Taris fussing over him. Csevet himself did not plea for a respite, nor did Taris, except for a brief half-hour he took to shoot a snow-hare for their supper.

At long, long last, with night almost fallen, Taris led them over the lip of and into a cavern. Once his eyes had adjusted to Csevet’s flintlight, Maia spotted the small fire-pit with its battered pot perhaps a yard inward from the entrance, then the thick piles of evergreen boughs and bracken at the far wall.

“’Tis a common shelter, Serenity,” Taris said in answer to Maia’s curious look. “There are a number of them throughout the Osreialhalans, known to mountain folk alone.”

“Would travelers not simply shelter in villages?” Maia asked.

“Aye, an they’re close enough to one. But in winter a fair day can turn snowy in the wink of an eye, and one never knows if it’ll be a flurry or a blizzard.”

Taris and Csevet began to drag some of the piled-up bedding closer to the fire-pit. Maia moved to help them, but staggered as he did, and grudgingly he acceded to their worried orders that he rest while they set up camp. Fifteen minutes later he was stretched out on an uneven pile of old needles and ferns. Taris had broken up the branches from which those needles had been stripped and was whittling a spit for the hare, and Csevet was kindling the rest of the wood in the fire-pit. Maia had wondered if they might have become too damp to catch fire, but the air of the mountains proved dry enough to keep firewood flammable even in a cave.

As the flame caught and broadened, Maia closed his eyes and let the heat rest upon his face. If he were not as snug and warm as he had been by hearths in Celvaz or Rishonee, let alone Cetho, still it was a welcome break from struggling through the outside world of grey and white.

“Ah, good,” Taris said, tucking his legs beneath him in front of the fire. “What have we in our bundles to go with the hare?”

“I’ve brought some cheese!” a piping voice declared.

Maia’s heart sank as he raised himself halfway on his makeshift pallet to see Hithera Rishonar standing just beyond them. He was hatted, cloaked, and cleated just as they were, and his cold-ruddied face shone with excitement as he held out his offering for the evening meal.

Taris’s face went almost immediately from blank shock to rage. Maia, seeing it echoed in the set of his shoulders and jaw as he rose, in his stride as he closed the distance between himself and his younger brother, cried out, _“No!”_ — but Taris moved so fast that by then he had already laid the back of his hand across Hithera’s mouth. The boy dropped to his knees, clapping both gloved hands to his face, the cheese lying forgotten beside him.

“Heedless brat,” Taris seethed as he loomed over Hithera’s shrinking form. “Hast any idea how beside herself our mother must be, to find thee gone as well?” When Hithera did not answer, Taris grabbed him up by the collar of his cloak and began to shake him. “Well? Hast thou?”

“Taris, _stand down!”_ Maia shouted, on his feet now and his blood scalding through his veins. “An thou ever strikest that boy again, we will discharge thee from our service!”

Taris froze, though his hands remained on Hithera’s collar. “Serenity,” he said, his voice shaking as he released his brother, who stumbled but did not fall, and took a few steps back. “He has endangered himself by following us here. As well as caused our family grief.”

Maia took a deep breath to steady himself and clear the red haze that had filled in the space behind his eyes. “Be that as it may, we forbid you to deal violently with him while you follow us. Or with anyone else who is not attacking any of us.”

Hithera was still pressing one hand to his mouth. His eyes, wet and wide, were fixed on Maia with something like astonishment, and his ears had begun rise again from their pinned position. Csevet, on the other side of the fire from the rest of them, watched from behind his stony mask.

Drawing another deep breath, Maia asked, “Can you take him back to Rishonee?”

Taris’s mouth twisted. “We’d lose two days, Serenity; one returning, another regaining our progress. And it seems a storm is coming in from the steppes. An we made it safely back to Rishonee, we could be snowed in there for many more days — by which time the news of your second visit will have circulated more broadly.”

“And your family would be in grave danger,” Maia said grimly. _Graver danger,_ he corrected himself in his mind, recalling the looks of distrust Taris had drawn at the bathhouse.

“Aye, Serenity,” Taris said unhappily, ears low.

“Then the michen can remain,” Maia said. As Hithera broke into a smile of exhilarated relief, Maia wheeled around to him and said sharply, “So long as obeyest thine elders, Hithera: ourself, Mer Aisava, and thy brother. We do not order thee back to Rishonee only because it is not safe. But we are not pleased that hast put thyself in the path of danger. Carest not that thy family would grieve an any harm came to thee?”

“They’d grieve for Taris, too!” Hithera exclaimed indignantly, only remembering to add “…Serenity” a second later.

“Taris is a _man._ Thou art a boy. And Taris did not deceive his parents as to his intentions, did he?” Hithera looked down at the cavern floor. Maia continued: “Indeed, he announced his intent before half of Rishonee in the bathhouse, at the price of their disapproval. It was a selfless and honorable thing for him to have done.” Taris, who had been standing silent and humbled, looked up now with gratitude in his eyes, his ears beginning to lift again.

“I … I am sorry, Serenity,” Hithera said, his eyes still on the floor. “I … I wanted to be of help. And to see the Ethuveraz.”

Maia went to him and, as he had done with the boy’s mother, knelt at his feet. Hithera looked up, as startled as Biteän had been.

“Hithera,” Maia said softly, putting his hands on the child’s shoulders. “This is not a pleasure jaunt. Our goal is to free the Ethuveraz from a very evil man. What such a man might do even to a young boy is not fit for the telling between men, let alone michen. An such were to befall thee, thy brother would never forgive himself. _We_ would never forgive _ourself.”_ He heard the tremor in his voice and forced himself once more to calm, then repeated: “Thou must promise us wilt obey us. An we tell thee to run, wilt run. An we tell thee to hide, wilt hide. An we must leave thee behind with adults we deem trustworthy, wilt remain with them. And, when others are about, wilt address us as ‘Mer Honithar’ and Mer Aisava as ‘Mer Zherodar,’ for to reveal who we are would endanger us all.”

Hithera’s eyes were wide still, but dry now. “I promise,” he said gravely.

“Wilt swear to it?” came Csevet’s voice, and Maia looked up at him, startled. His face was alive now but grave, his eyes sharp and challenging. “On whatever gods worshipp’st, Hithera?”

Hithera nodded. “Yes, Mer Aisava. I swear to Cstheio Caireizhasan: I will obey mine emperor and his man and my brother and not get into trouble again.”

Maia, accustomed to concealing his emotions from Setheris, did not give in to the urge to laugh at how the oath had immediately slid from a man’s into very much a boy’s. Csevet’s expression was carefully controlled, but Maia could see his eyes glint and his lips twitch. Taris’s face was a mélange of rue, fear, and profound affection — and that, far more than Hithera’s oath, threatened Maia’s composure anew. So he stood, then, and put his right hand on Hithera’s shoulder once more. “The Lady of the Stars is our goddess, too. Thy mother worships her, yes? Ours did as well.”

“Your mother has gone to Ulis, Serenity?” Hithera asked with a frown. “I am full sore.”

And now the pain in Maia’s breast was a tangible thing. “It was many years ago, Hithera. More years than since thou wert born.”


	7. Chezhvaho

The cheese Hithera had swiped from Biteän’s stores proved a good accompaniment to the hare, along with half the jar of kale braised in lard she had sent Maia, Csevet, and Taris off with. Csevet harvested a chunk of ice for the pot, giving them meltwater for washing it all down. When the meal was done, Taris produced a flask of metheglin. Csevet took a good share of sips from it, Maia shook his head at it, and Hithera was discouraged from sampling it at all by a round of glares.

Shortly thereafter, with the flames gleaming off the fat, soft flakes tumbling down outside the mouth of the cavern, they curled up in the bedding: Taris with his brother, Maia with Csevet. Between Maia’s exhaustion, the presence of the two Rishonadeisei — especially Hithera — and the question of “imposition” having been settled, the feel of Csevet up against him did not inflame him as it had in the root cellar of Talorathee. It was warm, reassuring, even pleasant. Not anything to keep him from drifting into untroubled dreams.

They awoke to more grey and more white. They smothered the fire, dragged the bedding back against the rear wall, and moved on.

He and Csevet, Maia realized, owed Salezheio their prayers of thanks for permitting them to journey to and from Celvaz in clear weather. There was, to be sure, a beauty to the storm that enveloped them: it shrouded the Osreialhalans in snow as soft and fine as a plush Barizheise towel and in a hush of nearly all sound. But trudging through it drew hard upon the body’s reserves of strength, despite the advantage of cleats, and the fall of it narrowed their fields of vision even further than did the high walls of the passes on either side.

Though their winter kit kept the worst of the cold and moisture off their skins, flakes fell and melted on foreheads and cheekbones and the bridges of noses, and it clogged in eyelashes and dripped into eyes. The upper half of Maia’s face was numb one moment, stinging the next, and the wind when it shrieked through the passes set the bare skin afire. He could tell from his companions’ narrowed eyes and the tense muscles of their cheekbones that they were no more comfortable. And while couriers’ winter boots were waterproofed, their leathers were not. Though the hides kept Maia’s legs warmer and drier than his face, the moisture eventually soaked through them, and then through the woolens below. From his calves downward he was clammy with snowmelt and sweat, and, as Taris had warned, it was drawing the heat out of his flesh and numbing it.

They managed, however, to find their next cavern shelter before the paltry daylight had died completely. They spoke few words as Csevet kindled the fire, Taris and Maia dragged the bedding close by it, and Hithera found snow for the pot. There was no game to be roasted tonight, as the storm had driven the mountains’ creatures to ground and the wind had erased their tracks. The four of them shivered as they ate winter apples and dried salt pork in silence.

“We must dry out our trousers and linens,” Taris said wearily. He conscripted Csevet to help him heft large stones from deeper into the cave closer to the fire, opposite their makeshift bracken bed. Maia, numb-legged and bone-tired, had not even the energy for a blush as he stripped the garments from his lower body and placed them on the rocks, as the others had done theirs. The four of them curled up in the bracken, this time in a pile to conserve heat, and though they flinched at the touch of each other’s icy skin they were all asleep within minutes.

The third day and night were much like the second. The fourth saw the clouds above them begin to part in late afternoon, the winter sun reaching down between them to pick out sparkling gems in the fresh snow. Maia’s face stayed dry, but the drifts were piled so deep that toward the end of the day his thighs were as chilled as his calves and shins. Their supplies were running low by now, and though Taris kept an eye out for game he saw none. They had just enough to eat that night, but Maia feared they would go hungry the next.

But, throughout the course of the fourth day, the passes had been gradually broadening, and their walls seemed to be growing lower as well. Soon after they left their shelter on the fifth day they gained a sort of plateau that, as best as Maia could determine, ran due west. The soaring Osreialhalans were falling away behind them, yielding to the lower but far more dramatically jagged elevations of the badlands.

Before noon, his nose was twitching and his stomach growling to the forgotten scent of woodsmoke. “There’s a town nearby?” he asked.

“Aye, Serenity. ’Tis Chezhvaho,” Taris said. “The northernmost Ethuverazheise town on the Istandaärtha.” The very name of the river made Maia’s heart leap in his breast.

“Chezhvaho is _big!”_ Hithera exclaimed, dancing a little with excitement on the ice.

Maia once more suppressed his amusement when the “big” town came into sight. Certainly, compared with Rishonee, it was large: perhaps fifty buildings, he estimated as they gained the main thoroughfare running east to west, and the majority of them small houses. The othasmeire was somewhat larger, as were what Taris said were the meetinghouse and the bathhouse. The breadth of the Istandaärtha here was less than half of what it was in Cetho, and that breadth was hard-frozen all the way across. Here, the river also lacked the myriad of wharves, piers, and launches that bristled from its banks in the capitol. There was one lonely ramshackle pier on each side, and sitting alongside that on the near side was a long, high building that was possibly the largest in Chezhvaho. “The warehouse, Serenity,” Taris said when Maia pointed.

“Full of gold?” Maia asked. Then he saw the solitary guard at its entrance and suspected the merchandise within was rather less valuable.

“Not much anymore, nor other precious stones. These days it’s other ores, mainly iron and copper. And fish and meat, and furs and hides. There’s a tannery well upriver. Sundry other things, too, from merchants coming from the factory towns west and south. An it please you, Serenity, wait you here a moment with Mer Aisava. Hithera, come thou with me, and do not gainsay aught I tell Vosa.”

With his younger brother at his heels, Taris strode off in the direction of the warehouse. He hailed the guard, who returned the greeting, clasped arms with him, and affectionately clapped Hithera on the shoulder. The two men conversed for a moment, and then Taris beckoned to Maia and Csevet.

“Vosa,” he said as they approached, “these are my friends, Bera and Nesthis. They were working as couriers in Cetho, but they fled after the city fell.”

Vosa’s wide, beefy face crinkled in sympathy. “Terrible thing,” he said in the flat, broad accent of the badlands. “Glad you’re both safe.”

“Thank you,” Csevet said, but now, rather than the Thu-Cethoreise highland twang, he affected the brusque accent of a Lower Cetho commoner.

The guard waved his hand. “Friends of Taris’s are friends of mine.” It was, Maia understood, an invitation to address him in the informal.

“Vosa said he can find some work for us for a few days,” Taris said, “and put us up in a corner of the warehouse, until we head to Ezho to find thy kin, Nesthis.” Csevet nodded at this.

“Am grateful to thee, Vosa,” Maia said, imitating his mother’s intonations, which he had not heard in ten years but which would remain in his mind’s ear forever. Slipping into her accent made comfort bloom unexpectedly in his chest.

The guard waved his hand. “It’s naught. I can find you all changes of clothes, too. Have you enough money for baths and laundry? An not, I can spot it for you before you begin work.” Maia felt his face and ears grow hot at the obvious if polite suggestion.

“Ah, that would be very kind of thee,” Taris said smoothly. It occurred to Maia that this was far from the first time Taris had emerged from the Osreialhalans in dire need of a wash, and that Vosa very likely thought nothing ill of them for it.

They spent the next hour and Vosa’s coin at the bathhouse and then, briefly, the washerwoman’s. The former was mostly empty at this time of day. The sole attendant on duty, a boy of perhaps Taris’s age, sat in an old wooden chair at the entrance to the men’s side of the house, next to a rack of cubicles mounted on the wall. He put down his yellow-backed novel that he could greet the four of them and take their money, then politely averted his eyes while they undressed. Csevet removed their clean clothes from the sack that Vosa had lent them and stuffed their worn clothes into it. The boy stuffed the sack into one cubicle and laid their clean ones in another, and he handed them back two small wooden tokens. “So that no one walks off with another’s things,” he explained in response to Maia’s quizzical look.

As Maia sank into the bathwater, he felt pinpricks of chill on his skin clear through the humid heat. Remembering Rishonee, he was bewildered at first, then alarmed at the possibility they had been betrayed. A quick glance at Csevet’s stony mien and Taris’s scowl made him realize it was only that, once again, he was in territory where some elves simply despised goblins. Hithera, fortunately, seemed oblivious to the tension. Maia pointedly did not look at the two men on the opposite side of the bath who, he realized, had been glaring and had had their ears pinned back since the four of them had walked in; rather, he set his jaw and his own ears and concentrated on cleansing himself.

The washerwoman was of Fenusu’s age and build. Though she had little of Fenusu’s warmth, she did not seem to care whose clothes she washed so long as their coin was good. “They’ll be ready tomorrow, ‘round this time of day,” she said curtly. Taris thanked her and led the rest of them through the steam, into the cold, and back to the warehouse, where they had a quick meal of chewy dried beef and pickled cabbage before getting to work.

The half-day’s labor consisted mostly of shifting crates and other items around, with Hithera put to sweeping the floor. After weeks of shoveling snow and dung at Parugo, then his endless journeys through the mountains, Maia found his new tasks laughably easy. The building was not heated, for the sake of the foodstuffs it held, but at least it was out of the wind. Even the reek of poorly tanned hides and fish starting to go off did not trouble him once he became accustomed to it; certainly it was no worse than the Parugo stables before they’d been mucked out.

Every so often Vosa would admit a man or pair of men bearing slips of paper granting them permission to take one or more items. On some such occasions, a crate might need to be pried open, or Taris, Csevet, or Maia to help the newcomers move their merchandise outside to a wagon or packsaddle. Once or twice, something new was carried in, needing to be put in its designated place. “Slow this time of year, with the river frozen over,” Taris said as he and Maia rearranged crates near the northern wall to accommodate two new ones. “But there are still prospectors coming down from the Osreialhalans, and traders headed south, east, and west.”

Eventually the working day came to a close. Vosa said, “I wish I could invite you all home for supper, but I doubt my wife’s cooked enough for all of us.”

“Is not a worry, Vosa,” Maia said. He silently thanked the Lady of the Stars he would not have to make an excuse for not wanting to show his face to yet more strangers in Chezhvaho — children included, perhaps. “Is kind of you, the thought.”

Vosa smiled at him. “Help you yourselves to a bit more dried meat and jarred greens for supper. I think you’ve all earned it, and Taris and I are forever owing one another favors anyway. You can borrow a few of the furs to sleep on and under as well, so long as you take care not to spill aught on them.”

“Thank’ee, Vosa,” Csevet said, maintaining his own feigned accent.

“Of course. Oh, and once I’ve left, you’ll have to bar yourselves in for the night. Full sore I am, an you’d wanted to visit the tavern, or …” He trailed off at the hard look from Taris and added, “or any other place. Though I suppose with the michen in tow it wouldn’t be the best of plans.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Taris said curtly.

“Why couldn’t I go to the tavern, Taris?” Hithera pleaded, the edge of a whine coming into his voice. Maia wished to say sternly to him, _Rememberest what thou sworest before us?_ , but not with Vosa still present.

“Wouldst be bored, in sooth,” Csevet said. “It’s just men sitting at tables, drinking and talking about things that wouldn’t interest thee. Wouldst be clamoring for us to take thee back here after ten minutes.”

Hithera pouted but argued no further. Vosa grinned and flicked his fingers against Hithera’s right ear, which made the boy’s mouth twitch despite his intent to sulk. “Feel free to roam about in here and climb crates an likest, Hithera, as long as touchest none of the merchandise. And with that, I’m off.”

“My regards to Selino,” Taris said. “Tell her I’m full sore to miss her cooking.”

“I will, Taris, and I’m sure she’ll send me off in the morning with her regards to thee and Hithera.”

The evening passed without event. Hithera ran up and down the aisles until he wore himself out, then came to join Maia, Csevet, and Taris as they dined on more dried beef, this time with preserved mustard greens. Vosa had left them with a few jugs of water to wash down the salty meal with; there were rainbarrels that had been brought into the warehouse at the onset of the cold weather, but the water within them was frozen solid. Mindful not to abuse Vosa’s generosity, they ate only as much as they needed to quell their hunger, then set the remainder of the food back in its place.

“What are our plans for tomorrow?” Maia asked once they had eaten.

“It may be wise to spend another day and night here, earning coin to spend,” Taris said. “Otherwise, we are at Your Serenity’s disposal.”

“We agree, Mer Rishonar,” Csevet said. “And, afterward, heading downriver would make the most sense.”

“It would. Though we’d still be on foot; the Istandaärtha is, Vosa told us, frozen south of Ezho,” Taris said, shaking his head. “He also told us that, from what the Orders of Salezheio and Orshan in Ezho say, this is omened to be a terrible winter. Though by now we don’t think one needs an omen to tell one that.”

“Indeed,” Maia said wryly. “What would be the next town or village to the south?”

“Daiano, Serenity,” Csevet said. “Though there are a number of solitary farmsteads between here and there.”

Once again Maia battled the wave of futile anger rising in his breast. The waters of Daiano might not have kept his mother alive, but they could have lessened her pain considerably; nonetheless, his father would never have granted Chenelo and Maia permission to leave Isvaroë. Forcing himself to push these thoughts away, he asked, “Can one farm in the badlands? We thought all the land was waste.”

“Well, one cannot raise much in the way of crops, Serenity, but further south there’s more scrub, and one can graze livestock on it,” Csevet said. “And just enough soil to grow a few vegetables for the family, if one husbands it well. We should be able to buy or beg more supplies at such a farm before we reach Daiano.”

“Would Daiano not be busy in winter?” Taris asked. “Full of nobles who might recognize you, Serenity, and perhaps Mer Aisava too?”

“It might,” Csevet said. “But, if there is enough unrest in the Ethuveraz, we suspect most of them will not wish to leave court, or their estates.”

“Then Daiano would be locked down, we reckon,” Taris said.

“We can sort it out when we reach Daiano,” Maia said decisively in the plural. The conversation turned to trivial matters. Shortly thereafter Taris laid a half-dozen furs down on the stone of the floor, while Csevet put out the gaslights. They curled up between the layers of fur, Taris with Hithera and Maia with Csevet, and passed into sleep before long.

The next day was a busier one, with more custom being brought into as well as out of the warehouse now that the recent storm was long cleared. A party of prospectors and hunters had hiked downriver from southwestern Celvaz, and a merchant wagon train had returned from Aveio by way of Vorenzhessar.

“What’s toward in Aveio?” Csevet asked a man from the merchants’ train whom he and Maia were helping carry in a large crate. Like many of his fellows he was a longshoreman by trade, but when the rivers froze over he earned his living loading and unloading wagons instead of ships.

“It’s tense,” the man said as they set it down and Csevet picked up a pry-bar. “Full of refugees from the east, and not enough jobs or charity to feed them all.”

“Is like that in all the western Ethuveraz?” Maia asked.

The longshoreman shook his head, making his rows of little steel earrings jingle. He was an enormous elf in both height and breadth, with a voice pitched like thunder. His hair was not merely cropped but shaved down to his scalp, which was inked with a red sigil of Anmura. “Nay, ’tis better in the factory towns. Many more fleeing there, but also much more work, plus charity from the guilds. Even the prelacy is for once making an effort to help; we wager they fear being burnt out of their nice manors an they don’t. North and west of Aveio, there are barely any refugees—” He grunted as he hefted a greenish armload of copper ore out of the crate. “—yet.”

“Not as many towns to take them in, either,” Csevet said grimly.

“In sooth,” the big man agreed.

Their heads all swung round just then at the crash of glass, a shout of anger, and a loud thump from another aisle. A voice cried out in pain, and a second voice shouted, “Doler, thou clumsy mudwalking hobgoblin!”

“Aaaah! Forgive me, Mer Pesohar!” the unfortunate man cried out again amid more thumps. “Please, please, take pity!”

Maia slipped into the blankness of expression he had perfected in his years at Edonomee, but his heart pounded, his ears flagged, and his hands had begun to tremble. He turned sharply away from Csevet and the longshoreman, fearful of losing his composure. The thumps trailed off shortly, but the victim of them continued to moan. Then the moans began to recede, and Maia perceived that the poor fellow was being helped outside.

“Damned stupid clumsy hobgoblin,” the man who had shouted at Doler muttered into the sudden silence. “We should discharge him from our employ, we should.”

A few seconds later, Csevet asked quietly, “Bera?”

“Are fine,” Maia said sharply as he turned about. He caught the muted worry in Csevet’s eyes and a look of embarrassed sympathy from the longshoreman.

“Mobis, thou piece of shit,” the big man muttered under his breath as he bent down to gather up more ore. His ears were flat to his bare skull, the upper half of the right one covering part of the sigil tattoo.

“Is he your employer?” Csevet asked.

“Nay, thank Anmura. Our wife is Barizheise and we have michen; we’d have to drink more than we already do to bear working for that wretch. Hope they can find Doler a doctor in this backwater. The rest of us will chip in for him an we must.”

The remainder of the day was uneventful. Maia, sickened and fearful, could not bring himself to make conversation with anyone. Hithera, thank Cstheio, had not witnessed the beating for himself, but he had overheard it too, and he was similarly subdued. Taris gave him a respite from the tense atmosphere by sending him to the washerwoman’s to retrieve their newly clean clothes, and Vosa had him run a few other simple errands within the village.

Csevet continued to solicit rumors and news from the men who came and went from the warehouse, as did Taris, who knew a few of them from his previous trips to Chezhvaho. They learned that Mobis Pesohar had knocked out one of Doler’s teeth, but otherwise the worker had sustained no worse than bruises. The local herbwoman — a cousin to Vosa’s wife Selino — had applied a poultice to his mouth and brewed him some willow-bark tea, and her fee for his treatment was quite reasonable. Pesohar had been talked down from firing Doler by his other men, who quite liked their goblin comrade, their employer not nearly as much.

They learned, too, that the eastern Ethuveraz was in an uproar. Nobles with the wealth to hire their own armed guards had taken refuge at their estates and barred the gates to all but family and a handful of servants servants deemed trustworthy. All other nobles had locked down their properties as best they could and fled east with their dearest possessions to Porcharn, with a tiny minority escaping south into Barizhan, and an even tinier one north into Celvaz to seek refuge in Tefuilo. None had fled west, where there was no easy passage to the lands beyond the Edonara and — even in more-placid times — no sympathy for the nobility.

Many commoners had done so by ferry in the south, however, as the longshoreman had said. Others had gone to Amalo in the far northeast — this bit of news made Maia wonder how Thara Cehelar fared there, if indeed he remained there — or left the Elflands altogether. The poorest of the eastern Ethuveraz’s poor remained put, as they had nowhere to go and no money to go there with; they sought the jobs that had been vacated in the silk factories, and they hoped they would escape the notice of the new regent and the group of hard-faced men who accompanied him everywhere.

“Bera, Nesthis,” Taris said as he pulled them aside at the end of the day. “Hithera and I are going to Vosa’s house to say hello to his wife and their michen, maybe have a cup of tea, but we’ll come back here to sup. His brother will stand guard for a bit, an you want to go to the baths. We’ll go after we come back from Vosa’s, and we four will bar ourselves in again tonight.”

“Did he invite us as well?” Maia asked warily in the plural.

“He said you were welcome, but…” Taris flushed. “I told him, Bera, that thou mightst not feel very sociable, after, well, after what happened today. He understood.”

Maia, his own face and ears growing hot, looked down at the floor. But, he thought, it was a useful excuse.

The men’s side of the bathhouse was more crowded that evening, the din of conversation and one man’s off-key singing rising over the hiss of steam and splash of water. At least three other goblins, the hues of their skin ranging from a paler grey than Maia’s to a blue-tinted black, stood out among all the white elven flesh surrounding them. Maia could see nobody glaring at him or even paying him any mind whatsoever, but the words _thou clumsy mudwalking hobgoblin!_ would not cease ringing in his head. He kept close to the rim of the tub, close to Csevet, and strove not to look at a single strange face in the half-submerged crowd around him lest Mobis Pesohar or another such as the two elves the day before catch his eye.

Instead, he looked everywhere else. Chezhvaho’s bathhouse was a utilitarian affair all in all, but each side of it was far larger on its own than was the entire bathhouse in Rishonee. At this hour there were several attendants on duty. As before, a check boy sat near the cubicle rack to check in patrons’ clothes and other belongings and to keep an eye on them. A mop boy swabbed at the floor tiles with a mixture of lemon juice and vinegar whose sharp odor cut straight through the steam. A third attendant walked around the rim inspecting the soap holders, cleansing them of caked suds when necessary with an equally acrid towel, and sometimes replacing the chunk of soap itself. The establishment used a well-milled grade of it, redolent of sedge and sweetflag, and after the last few months it smelled of pure luxury to Maia.

A fourth boy continually restocked the shelves at front with well-worn but clean folded towels, gathered up the sopping ones that patrons had left on the floor or racks, and carried them to a large room at the rear of the men’s side — the center of the entire building. Maia spied activity within for the few seconds that its door was open: washerwomen kneeling at washtubs, drying racks hung about a carefully watched hearth. Then the door closed behind the attendant, and Maia’s gaze drifted to various other doors about the men’s side. There was at least one door for every two feet of wall. Why? Were they supply closets? If so, why did the towel boy carry all the clean towels out from the central room, rather than opening any of the other doors?

Suddenly there were two men directly in his line of vision, on the other side, risen naked and dripping from the tub and heading toward one of the doors. The space it revealed when they opened it was, from Maia’s perspective, too shadowy to gauge its size, but from what he could see and from the placement of the surrounding doors, there was barely room for the two men in there.

“Nesthis?” he said in an undertone.

“Aye, Bera?” Csevet said in his rough Lower Cetho accent, no louder than Maia had spoken.

“Didst see those two men leave the bath and go into that small room?”

Csevet had already turned magnolia-pink with steam and scrubbing, but now his color seemed to deepen to that of wine, and he fixed his eyes on the surface of the water. “Ah, nay, I hadn’t seen.”

“What are they —” And then it struck him, and though his skin seldom showed a blush, he was immensely grateful that Csevet was no longer looking at him. “Oh. Well. Ah.”

“I’m sure they’ll be out once their … conversation is done,” Csevet said quietly.

“Aye. Their … conversation,” Maia said hastily, returning his own attention to the completion of his bath.

It could not have been more than three minutes, possibly less, before the same door swung open again and the two naked men strode out, returning to the bath. Maia flicked his gaze away from them — but caught the mop boy heading toward the same small room. He left the door open so that he could swab the entire floor while standing just outside it.

Maia did not look at Csevet again just then, nor did Csevet look at him. Several minutes of silence passed between them, despite the fact that Maia was more than clean enough and so Csevet must have been as well. At long last, Maia heard Csevet gently ask, “Art finished?”

Maia nodded, and, picking up their tokens from the tub’s rim, they climbed naked and dripping onto the tiles. Despite the awkwardness of a moment before, Maia felt none now as he and Csevet dried themselves: after so many communal baths, he had mastered the trick of simply _not looking,_ and of assuming that others were affording him the same courtesy.

They redeemed their tokens for their fresh clothes and sack of worn clothes, and they dressed quickly. Csevet insisted on carrying the sack back to the warehouse, and it was light enough that Maia did not insist otherwise. Once they were kitted out again, they exited into the cold air of the street.

They had gone no further than a few yards before Maia felt fingers digging hard into his elbow through the cloak and leather tunic. Before he could react, Csevet dragged him bodily into a narrow alley between the bakery and the seamstress’s house.

“What on earth—” Maia hissed.

“Soldiers,” Csevet said under his breath, leaving the sack of clothes on the ground behind Maia, and Maia went silent as fear exploded within him. Csevet pushed him further back into the narrow passage, then crept closer to its entrance again to watch the street.

“… be here, Sergeant?” a bass voice said, sounding skeptical.

“That prospector said he saw the hobgoblin in the bathhouse last night,” his baritone-voiced companion replied in a Lower Cetho accent.

“Aye, but he’s not the only one here, sir.” The first man’s accent was familiar to Maia: that of the Edonara. “And who can tell one of those damned mudwalkers from another?”

“There aren’t _that_ many hobgoblins this far north, Private. And this is a logical place for the two of them to stop.”

“But, sir, why would they have come down out of Celvaz again? It’s even more dangerous for them now than before.”

“The Twenty-Third turned over every cobblestone and opened every cabinet on that count’s estate, and they tore apart the house of that little cocksucker’s old friend too. Where else in Celvaz would they have gone this time of year?”

Maia’s mouth suddenly tasted of iron, and he was glad he had not yet eaten supper, for he didn’t think he could have kept it down anymore. Csevet’s shoulders, silhouetted in the light coming from the street, stiffened, and despite his own terror Maia was consumed with the urge to lay a hand on them in solace.

“They couldn’t find the friend or his wife, though, sir. Maybe they took the hobgoblin and the marnis up to hide with the wife’s people.” The private scoffed. “Imagine a soft pair like that trying to live in the caves.”

“Well, from what the captain of the Twenty-Third told Captain Corema, a pair of loose-tongued fellows from that estate said those two spent six weeks there shoveling shit and snow. We were impressed, we have to admit. Could you see the late Varenechibel Zhas mucking out a stable, or that she-badger who’s now hanging frozen off the wall at court?” The sergeant paused. “Or… the one who’s regent now?”

Maia could see their faces, now, in the torchlight. The thought of Tethimar had set their mouths hard.

“This is strictly between you and us, Private, but glad we are that you and we aren’t the only two men looking for the hobgoblin and his marnis,” the sergeant muttered. He was taller than his subordinate.

“He wouldn’t have three entire companies executed for failure, sir.” The private paused. “Would he?”

“Nay. Just flogged,” the sergeant said caustically, “and then doused with brine.” He spat into the gutter slush. His subordinate had no reply.

The two soldiers began to move away from the alley. Csevet took a step backward into it — and stumbled. The scrape of his boot sole as he righted himself was not loud, but the soldiers’ heads turned in unison, and then they turned around and began to approach the alley again. Maia’s hands were shaking afresh. He wondered if they were steady enough to, if he had to, turn the blade in his boot against a pair of well-trained fighters. Or against Csevet, and then himself.

His mind went blank with bewilderment as Csevet leapt onto him bodily, shoving him up against the alley wall, and wound his arms and legs around him. His hand clutched at Maia’s hat, pushing Maia’s head downward so that Csevet’s warm lips could press against his.

“Hey. Thou, there,” he heard the private say. “What — oh.”

Csevet pulled his head away from Maia’s at an angle that, Maia grasped immediately, blocked Maia’s face from the soldiers’ view — and their faces from his. He wasn’t even sure the soldiers, who carried no lantern, could see all of Csevet’s in what scant light spilled into the alley.

“Do you _mind?”_ Csevet demanded peevishly, now taking on a flat badlands accent. _“Some_ of us are trying to do an honest night’s work here!”

“‘Honest’?” the sergeant sneered. “Now _there’s_ an original word to apply to whoring.” That last word sent Maia’s blood rushing up into his face — and downward to other parts as well.

“Why not? I certainly earn every coin I get,” Csevet said sharply. Then, with a different note of challenge in his voice, he added: “You want to see me earn it? You come back later with coin, when I’m done with this fellow here. I’ll take both of you on at once, one in each end, and then you can switch. You’ll get your money’s worth, I promise.”

Maia would not have believed it possible that one could throb savagely while being deathly afraid.

It was the private’s turn to spit. “We’d rather fuck the oldest grandam in town, thank thee. Or a hole in the river ice, for that matter.”

“Boy,” the sergeant demanded suddenly, “hast seen a tall, skinny goblin half-breed, with grey skin and light-colored eyes, around Chezhvaho? Accompanied by a smaller, pure-blooded elf with a pretty face?”

“All the goblins I’ve seen lately are full-bloods. And _I,”_ Csevet declared haughtily, “am the only pretty elf in this village.”

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, we’d soon as not stand here and watch this little lightfoot get his arse drilled.” Maia could picture the private rolling his eyes as he spoke.

“All right,” the sergeant said. “But listen, boy: if see’st either of the men we described, leave word for Sergeant Thalicar and Private Hasinezh at the tavern.”

“Oh, I will,” Csevet promised fervently. Then his voice turned outright seductive: “And, my handsome friend, if want’st a little diversion more than thy comrade here does, leave word for Laïs at the tavern.”

Maia heard a soft scoff, then the sounds of the two soldiers moving away again without another word.

There was now nothing to distract Maia from his keen awareness of Csevet up against him, far more tightly and intimately than he had been on the pony’s back in Celvaz or at any time they had slept together. Csevet smelled of sedge and sweetflag, and his breath was equally warm and sweet upon Maia’s cheek — and coming surprisingly fast. Into the void left behind by terror rushed lust, powerful and heady, and Maia was suddenly glad of the wall behind him.

“Forgive us that, Serenity,” Csevet said very, very quietly now, affecting no accent at all, as he untangled his limbs from around Maia and hopped down to stand before him. “We would not have done it, had we not thought it direly necessary. And it was stupid of us not to have stepped backward more carefully.” He was looking away from Maia, out the entrance of the alley. Though it was nearly impossible to tell in this light, Maia would have wagered that Csevet had turned a deep pink.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Maia said, embarrassment and shame sharpening his voice. Csevet flinched at it as he picked up the sack of clothes again, and Maia berated himself inwardly: _Moonwit._ “Let us go back to the warehouse,” he added.

In the light of the torches, Maia saw that his hunch had been correct.

They greeted Vosa’s taciturn brother, whose name they had not caught, and once inside began to tuck into dried trout and yet more jarred greens. Before long Taris and Hithera returned, freshly bathed, and the brother departed. The Rishonadeisei were in good spirits: Vosa’s wife was evidently quite fond of them both, and Hithera enjoyed playing with their young son. Taris’s glance seemed to take in the weighty silence hanging about Maia and Csevet, but their mood did not infect him, as Hithera continued to babble happily about the visit. As the brothers ate, Csevet took it upon himself to ask them polite questions about Vosa’s family.

Maia retreated somewhat further away, cupping the icon of Cstheio in his hands and drawing a cloak of peace about himself with the mantra his mother had taught him. At one point he heard Hithera speak his title with a rising inflection, then Taris admonish him, “His Serenity is praying, let thou him be.” He forced himself to lift his head and smile blankly at Hithera, who seemed satisfied to turn his attention elsewhere.

The gaslights went out not long after, as they had decided that an early start the next day would be wise. The Rishonadeisei and Csevet did not take very long to fall asleep. But for the first time in a week, Maia could not, despite the exhausting day behind him.

Perhaps it would have been easier without Csevet lying up against him.

His cock began to fill at the realization, and as it swelled, it nestled all the more deeply into the cleft of Csevet’s buttocks. Maia, in despair, tried to summon up all the lust-killing thoughts that had helped him get to sleep in the Talorathee root cellar. To his even greater dismay, the images of ordure and old men’s genitals and his drunken cousin gave way to those of his dream in the root cellar, of Csevet licking at his ears and stroking his inner thighs. And then Csevet whispering in his ear, in his court accent, _Let me take thee in one end, and then the other. Wilt enjoy it, I promise._

His cock gave a throb that was on the near side of pain. His mind full of profanities that he had never once spoken, Maia pushed himself backward and away from Csevet and stood up. Csevet muttered something inaudible but fell silent again immediately and did not awaken.

At the far opposite of the warehouse from their sleeping spot, Maia wedged himself between a massive crate and the outer wall, then fumbled at the fastenings of his trousers until they yielded. The wall seemed to breathe the cold outside air at him, but it did not diminish one bit the insistent upward stab of his cockstand. He shuddered in relief just to wrap his right hand around it; it burned like a brand against his palm.

Had Csevet … done such things before? Maia recalled Thuikis’s taunts in the bath at Parugo, his intimations that male couriers freely bestowed their favors on men, and perhaps not just for money. It was disgraceful of him, that the memory of that violent wretch was spurring on his ardor, but … _had_ Csevet ever taken one man into his mouth, the other into his … body, at the same time? Even more shamefully, Maia thought of Setheris one night less than two years before, slurring, _Wouldst think the gods fashioned marnei with women’s tuning-pegs up their arses, so eager they are to have any man’s prick shoved up them. A common harlot has more discretion in the cocks she takes._ That… of a certainty, that could not be _literally_ true. But would Csevet take pleasure in being penetrated so, as the women in Kevo’s yellow-backed novels did when their lovers stroked them in “the secret place” between their thighs? Would his cock hang hard and heavy beneath his belly, throbbing harder with every internal stroke from the man who ploughed him? Would he whine and moan softly around the organ filling his mouth? Would the man whom he serviced with his mouth feel the vibrations ripple through him?

Maia himself could barely suppress his own whines and moans; he clapped his left hand over his mouth as his right brought him ever closer to crisis. Just as his stones began to draw taut, he imagined Csevet, kneeling before Maia himself, Maia’s cock flushed indigo with blood as it passed in and out of Csevet’s swollen pink lips, and then Csevet looking up at him with eyes more black than grey —

He bit into the undersides of his own fingers to stifle his cry.

The sweet haze of climax began to fade almost immediately. Maia was crouched in a freezing warehouse, half-undressed, cock shrinking, hand covered in seed. And he had brought himself off by imagining the most degrading things possible of the man who had slain another for him. Grimacing, he wished the bathhouse were still open at this hour, even if the water were nowhere near hot enough to cleanse him as deeply as he evidently needed.

There was a sack of dirty rags not far from the crate. Maia picked out one that was not excessively filthy and scoured his hand and groin with it, then balled it up and returned it to the sack. The washerwoman would be the only one to know, and she would not be able to tell whose seed it was. Then he refastened his trousers and made his way back to the spot where Csevet, Taris, and Hithera lay sleeping. Shame tightening his chest, he lay down behind Csevet again.

“… Bera?” Csevet murmured.

“I had to pass water,” he muttered in reply. Csevet made a noise of assent and said nothing more. Maia let his weariness, of mind now as well as body, carry him away into sleep.

***

Vosa returned with the dawn, and they settled up with him. In his estimate they had coin coming to them, despite what they owed him for meals, baths, and laundry. They took on more supplies, reducing that coin considerably; before Vosa’s arrival Taris had remarked that to build a fire might draw them unwanted attention, so he would be shooting no more game for a while. At the last moment, Vosa pressed upon them a rat-gnawed bear fur that, he said, no trader was ever going to take off the warehouse owner’s hands. Then he embraced Taris, knelt to do the same with Hithera, and clasped arms with both Maia and Csevet.

The four of them slipped out the warehouse door into a street that was so far deserted, although Maia could see smoke rising from the bakery’s chimney and, more distantly, that of the forge. “What path south do we take?” he asked.

“Not the river road,” Csevet said. “We’ve no doubt it’s being patrolled now.” Neither Maia nor Taris argued. Turning to the right of the weak sun as it cleared the horizon, they followed the secondary street until it ended, then climbed a low embankment and continued southward.


	8. The Farmstead

The badlands were both easier and harder to make their way through than had been the passes of the western Osreialhalans. Jagged though the peaks were here, they were fewer and lower overall, with less snow accumulated between them; and no snow now fell from the sky. On the other hand, the terrain was wildly uneven, and the Rishonadeisei did not know it at all. At times the ground was as flat as a tabletop, its stones easily skirted, but then it would erupt upward. They found themselves climbing over boulders at the bottoms of gorges, sliding across frozen gully streams, and — Maia’s heart in his throat — once pulling one another bodily across a deep crevasse, Hithera clinging to Taris’s back. A frigid wind never ceased to blow, and though Maia’s face remained dry it soon felt as though the skin were being flayed from it.

He shivered not only in the wind, but as they passed countless formations of rock that bore eerie resemblances to creatures out of wonder-tales, or to animals or people. Local legend, Csevet said, had it that these “spirit-stones” once _were_ people or animals or fantastic creatures that had attained their current state for any number of reasons. Hithera was enchanted by them, and Maia tried to let the boy’s wonder lift his own mood.

Then they passed a formation that looked like a man with his face lifted to the sky. “They say, Hithera, that those are the remains of a wicked maza,” Csevet said. “Cstheio Caireizhasan bid Osreian turn him to stone to punish him for his misuse of magic.” The image of Dazhis formed in Maia’s mind, and a cold stone in his belly.

The nights they made camp were the worst of all. For all the wild and bitter weather Maia had suffered since Csevet had freed him from Azharee, he had never before slept in the open. But the sparsely situated villages and towns of the badlands were likely no safer for them than the river road. Taris kept an eye out for caverns, but the best they could find along the way were overhangs or circles of rock that did not blunt the wind entirely. In these spots the four of them slept all together in one pile, fully dressed, the ratty bear fur drawn over and tucked beneath them. The wind skimmed over their exposed upper faces, and distant wolves wailed in counterpart with it.

As he had done at the monastery, Maia resigned himself to shivering until he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. The first night, it did not happen soon enough, and the next day he stumbled along in a stupor and would have died of his clumsiness several times over had Csevet or Taris not been there to save him. The second night, shaking with fatigue as he settled beneath the bear fur, he managed to sleep as though Ulis cradled him. By the third he had grown accustomed enough to the wind’s bite that he could obtain sufficient rest.

On the fourth morning they rose from their shelter to feel snowflakes on their faces once again. Maia’s ears shrank beneath his hat. Taris cursed softly under his breath. They set out upon a day that, if it were not quite the slog that Rishonee to Chezhvaho had been, was far from enjoyable. Maia’s upper face grew numb again before long, and the cocoon of snow about them numbed his mind as well. And, though they had conserved their supplies as best they could, they were once again beginning to run low.

Toward day’s end, as the snow-squalls mercifully began to clear, Maia spied a plume of smoke on the horizon. “Is’t a village?” he asked, squinting.

“More likely a farmstead, Serenity,” Csevet said.

“Would the farmer have been visited by soldiers, do you think, Mer Aisava?” Taris asked him.

“Perhaps,” Csevet replied. “Would you be willing to beg a few eggs and vegetables of them, Mer Rishonar? Or thou, Hithera?”

Hithera looked eager, but Taris made a face. “We aren’t so proud that we would not. But we can’t speak in the accents of others as easily as you, Mer Aisava, or even you, Serenity. Of a certain, Hithera can’t. The farmer may wonder what a mountain lad is doing in the badlands, where mountain folk are seldom found. An the soldiers _have_ paid him a visit he may put the pieces together.” He paused. “And we’d fain not steal from them, unless there’s no other way.”

“Nor would we,” Maia said vehemently.

Csevet paused, then said, “All right; we’ll knock at the door, and you three can wait a bit away from it. If they ask, we’ll say we’ve come up from Ezho.” As he continued, his accent began to change once more from the clipped tones of the Untheileneise Court to the flat vowels of the badlands. “My folk are across the river, southwest of Chezhvaho, and I’d a letter from my sister saying my mother’s deathly ill and wants to see me once more.” He managed a hitch in his voice on the last few words.

Taris grinned. “Have you ever trod a stage, Mer Aisava?”

Csevet’s mouth went crooked, and he said, “No, but we were a courier. We worked alongside folk with every accent we can recall, and some we can’t, and we carried messages in nearly every part of the Ethuveraz and occasionally across a border as well. We are not a theater-quality impressionist, but we can imitate accents well enough. And though couriers are by and large honest, every courier at one point or another must preserve his skin by telling an outrageous lie while looking as guileless as a prelate.”

Taris cocked a brow. “Prelates are guileless?”

“We imagine some are,” Csevet said, his face so straight that Maia could not repress a smile.

As they continued to walk, the farmhouse came into clearer view. It was fairly capacious looking and built of the reddish-yellow sandstone that dominated the badlands; the sinking sun, wreathed in orange-edged stormclouds, gilded its western end. True to what Csevet had said in Chezhvaho, what they could see of the surrounding fence did not enclose wide cropfields, just a limited area of scrub, as well as a modest barn that was also hewn from local stone.

The wall of the farmhouse facing them turned out to be the rear one. They passed its western wall at a fair distance, then surveyed its front. In addition to house and barn was a low, squat building. “Henhouse, Serenity,” Csevet said when Maia asked. The fence was low and simple, with spaces between the rails, designed to keep animals in more than to keep people out.

They situated themselves so that the bulk of the two smaller buildings concealed them from the view of anyone who answered the front door of the farmhouse. “Hold our rucksack for us, please?” Csevet said, unshouldering it and handing it to Taris. Then he proceeded to the gate, which from his futile rattling of its handle appeared to be locked. He moved a few feet away from it and swung himself over the fence without much effort.

As he strode up to the front door, a girl perhaps ten years old, the hood of her cloak drawn over her head, emerged from the henhouse with a basket in her hand. It was hard to tell at the distance and in the dimming light, but it seemed to Maia that the basket was none too full. She called out to Csevet, in a voice that sounded oddly un-badlands-like to Maia, “Good evening!”

Csevet turned about to greet her, and his eyes shot wide. The girl, who had been walking toward him, stopped to stand stock-still. In an incredulous tone she asked: “….Mer Aisava?”

Maia’s heart thumped hard.

“Are we betrayed, Serenity?” Taris hissed.

“No,” Maia said, gulping the word out of a tightening throat as he watched Csevet approach the girl and bow low to her. “That girl… Wait here, Taris.”

He forced himself not to break into a run as he followed the path Csevet had taken, the length of his legs permitting him to vault the fence even more easily. Csevet straightened as he approached. The girl turned to face Maia. Her eyes, the same color as his own, glinted with realization, then widened in bafflement.

“Are you…”

With that, Mireän Drazhin, elder daughter of the late Prince Nemolis Drazhar and Princess Sheveän Drazharan, Maia’s half-niece, fell silent. Maia could see the thoughts tumbling over and over in her head — first and foremost, how she should address him, in a situation he was fairly sure did not come up when royal children were tutored in etiquette.

He walked up to her and, as he had with Hithera, dropped to one knee and placed his hands on her shoulders. Her nose wrinkled. Maia recalled that neither he nor his companions had been able to bathe for several nights, but in the rush of his emotions there was no space for the shame he’d felt in Chezhvaho. 

“Hello, Mireän. I am sorry we are meeting for the first time in this manner, after all that has happened. But, yes, I am who you think I am.”

She blinked hard, likely as taken aback by his use of the informal for himself and the formal for her as by his common clothing and unkempt state. As she seemed to still not know what to say, Maia asked gently, “Your sister. Is Ino all right? And the First Nohecharei — I’d heard they disappeared. Did they flee with you? Are they all right as well?” Mireän nodded, and the rush of relief that had struck him upon recognizing her broadened to full flood.

“Does the farming family know who you are, Dach’osmichen?” Csevet asked.

She shook her hooded head. “No, Mer Aisava. Cala Athmaza sent us” — she spoke in the plural — “to the house to beg. He said to tell them our mother fled Cetho with us and then died of fever in Ezho. The Dichada took us in. They have us help with chores.”

Maia turned to Csevet. “Do you think it’s safe to tell them…?” He trailed off.

“We may have to, Serenity,” Csevet replied. “We’re not sure that whatever story we tell will accord with what they know of the dach’osmichen, and we’ll need their trust.”

“Oh, they’ve been very kind to us and Ino, Serenity!” Mireän exclaimed. “We trust them. Let us go get Merrem Dicharan.”

“Mireän,” Maia said as he rose, keeping one hand on her shoulder. “We’re kin, and I’m but four years older than Idra. An it please thee, let us address one another as kin. To thee and Ino, I would fain be ‘Cousin Maia.’”

Mireän nodded and echoed, “Cousin Maia.”

***

The Dichada — husband, wife, and four children ranging in age from eight to seventeen — were the picture of stolid and solidly built farmfolk. They stood inside the lower level of the farmhouse, which was all one great room, looking from Maia to Mireän and back again. Maia could tell they’d noticed the resemblance and were trying to square it with the obvious differences, as well as with whatever stories the girls had told them, but were too polite to remark upon it unbidden.

“We do not know how quickly news from elsewhere reaches this part of the Ethuveraz,” he said in his normal speaking voice. “So we do not suppose you know who we truly are. Or who this girl truly is.”

Merrem Dicharan’s mouth fell open, and a split-second later she was prostrating herself on the hard sandstone floor. Her husband, who seemed to have also caught on right away, followed suit. The elder children did, too, hastily pulling the younger ones down.

“Please, stand,” Maia said wearily. He should, he supposed, be grateful for the show of reverence, but it meant less to him right now than a bowl of whatever he could smell cooking on the hearth, a warm bed, and the safety of both his nieces and his First Nohecharei. “We are at this moment no longer emperor, and we cannot say for sure we will ever be again. Where is our younger niece?”

“Asleep upstairs, until supper,” Merrem Dicharan said as she rose. “And, Serenity, you are _still_ emperor to us. We heard good things about you. Things that wouldn’t have happened under — under the princess, and certainly won’t happen under … we shan’t speak the name.” She turned and spat into the fire.

“Soldiers came by perhaps a week and a half ago, seeking you, Serenity,” Mer Dichar said, getting to his own feet. “But we’d already heard about the second coup from a passing merchant. Do you travel south, to try to reclaim the throne?”

“That is the plan,” Maia said. Then the front door opened behind him, and he heard three sets of footsteps upon the sandstone. “Please let us introduce you to Mer Aisava, our secretary, and to Mer Rishonar and his small brother Hithera, who have accompanied us all the way from the Osreialhalans. Mer Rishonar has sworn himself to our service.” Csevet and Taris each clasped arms with both Mer Dichar and his sons, and both of them bowed to the farmwife and the daughters; Merrem Dicharan and her younger daughter flushed and babbled at the unaccustomed honor, while the elder daughter smiled and seemed to be repressing a laugh. Taris and Hithera, to whom Csevet had evidently explained things outside, bowed to Mireän as well. Hithera, too young and too short to clasp arms as men did, smiled and bobbed his head to the Dichada.

“We approached your farmstead to beg,” Csevet said. “We are running low on supplies. But if you do not have enough for all of us, we would not impose upon you, and we can offer you money for what you can spare.”

“Do not speak so, Mer Aisava,” Merrem Dicharan said vehemently. “We would be shamed, were we to not feed our emperor and his men in his time of need!”

She and her daughters began to bustle about, putting the finishing touches to the meal. As all the men and boys present began to take their places at the table, Mireän climbed the stairs. A moment later she led a sleepy-looking Ino downstairs by the hand. The little girl rubbed at her eyes and looked at the newcomers.

“Ino,” Maia said, rising again from his chair.

Ino frowned. “I’m not Ino anymore. I’m Thalevan.”

“It’s fine, Ino,” Mireän said, squeezing her hand visibly. “They know. Do you remember Edrehasivar?”

Ino’s eyes went wide. Before she could speak, Maia crouched down to meet her eyes said, “I’ve asked thy sister to call me ‘Cousin Maia.’ Wouldst call me that, too?”

“Cousin Maia,” Ino echoed. “We thought you were dead.” Then tears welled in her eyes. “Like Mama and Papa. We thought everybody was dead! Is Idra dead too?”

 _“No,”_ Maia said, so fervently that both girls flinched. On impulse he pulled Ino into his arms, then Mireän as well. “Idra is very much alive.” _If only because Eshevis Tethimar needs him alive,_ he thought savagely. Both girls stiffened at first, not accustomed to being embraced by one whom they’d just met for the first time, and one who was unwashed at that. But a moment later they both threw their arms around him, and Mireän was in soon in tears as well.

“Shh, shh, Tha— we mean Ino,” Merrem Dicharan said when Ino let loose a wail of despair. “Thine uncle’s here, and his men, and all will be well. Don’t wear thyself out with tears, it does naught but make thee more miserable. Wouldst like to fold and set out the napkins?”

“All right, Merrem,” Ino said, wiping her eyes and sniffling.

“Don’t wipe thy nose on thy shirtsleeve, lass, that’s ill-bred. Now — Mireän, is’t? Is Dach’osmichen too much of a lady now to set out the plates for us?”

“No, Merrem,” Mireän said with a smile.

“Mama, canst not order the daughters of a princess about like that!” the younger daughter protested.

“Pfft, Silan.” Merrem Dicharan waved her hand. “They’re still michen, and they need reminding not to work themselves up into a lather. And they’re good little workers, too. We’ll be sad to lose their help and have naught but you lazybones, thou and thy sister, left.” Silan rolled her eyes, but the elder daughter grinned.

“Mer Dichar, Merrem Dicharan… might we wash ourselves a bit before supper?” Maia inquired politely in the plural.

“Of course, Serenity,” Mer Dichar replied. “Tiba, Valto, set you up the tub and screen for them.”

Like most denizens of the badlands, the Dichada used upstairs washstands for most of the week, then took weekly baths in an oaken tub in the rear western corner of the downstairs, with a tall, plain wooden screen to preserve their modesty. The kitchen at the moment was cluttered with cookery, but over Maia’s protestations that the washstand would be perfectly fine, the elder children pushed sundry things out of the way, filled the tub from the hearth kettle, and dragged the screen into place.

Maia went first, at the insistence of everyone else in the farmhouse, and though he did take the opportunity to wash his hair he made his bath as businesslike an affair as possible. As he stood wrapped in shabby towels, Tiba and Valto heaved the tub out the back door — Maia shivering at the sudden blast of cold air on his damp skin — then refilled it again. Csevet and Taris were as brisk with their baths as Maia had been with his, but Taris had to remind Hithera, “Don’t dither and splash about. Supper is shortly to begin, and we are guests in these folks’ house.” To Maia, the reprimand seemed to have shades of Veris in it, and Hithera heeded it with alacrity and without complaint.

The two Dichadeise boys then led their four towel-clad guests upstairs. The upper floor, which was divided into menfolk’s and womenfolk’s sleeping quarters, was nearly as warm as the water in the kettle had been. The boys rummaged through the tall wardrobe in the men’s quarters, then pulled out various garments and laid them out on the beds. Though Maia was broader through the shoulders than he once had been, still Mer Dichar’s clothes hung rather comically on him. But neither Dichadeise son was nearly tall enough for Maia to wear his clothes at all. Csevet and Taris picked out and put on clothes that apparently belonged to Tiba, which fit reasonably well if a bit loose in the shoulders for Taris and especially Csevet. Hithera donned clothes belonging to the younger son, which fit him almost perfectly.

They all four politely thanked Tiba and his brother. The boys’ eyes were averted, their faces and ears pink, and as they gathered up the damp towels they muttered that it was no trouble. It occurred to Maia that these lads probably seldom saw strangers at all, let alone naked ones — and that he himself would have reacted much the same only a few short months before.

Supper was red beans and tubers cooked in chicken broth and fat, augmented with rye bread and preserved string beans, and washed down with weak barley beer. Unlike in Rishonee, here wives and daughters sat closest to the hearth, that they could more easily serve their menfolk. But the hearth was large, and the farmhouse was very tightly built. Even had neither been the case, Maia thought, simply being out of the wind and near a fire felt like an amazing luxury.

“Mireän, thou saidst the First Nohecharei are safe?” he asked.

“Yes, Cousin Maia. Ino and I can bring thee to them.”

“On the morrow,” Mer Dichar declared as his wife poured him a fresh glass of beer. “None of you should be abroad on so cold a night.”

“On the morrow, then,” Maia agreed.

“Meanwhile, Mer Dichar, we can hunt some hare or deer for you,” Taris said as he broke a chunk of bread in two. “We insist upon it.”

“We were of a mind to go hunting anyway,” the farmer said. “Valto and the boys will come with us. Hithera, art much of a hunter?”

“I shot my first hare this autumn!” Hithera proudly declared, leading to a round of indulgent chuckles from all adults and adolescents present. Taris gave him the same smile full of love and fear he had in the first common shelter, and, once more, Maia’s heart ached heavily in his chest. _Please, Cstheio Caireizhasan, let them both safely go home to Rishonee when this is all done._

There was not enough room for seven in the menfolk’s quarters, so the womenfolk took spare quilts from a wooden chest and spread them before the hearth for their visitors. Mer Dichar damped the flue and added a large, heavy log atop the coals smoldering in the hearth. “The bricks should keep their heat throughout the night, but if you’re chilled, Serenity, do have your men open the flue a bit more and poke at the fire.”

“Thank you, Mer Dichar,” Maia said, silently vowing to do no such thing. He’d seen few to no trees since he and the others had walked out of the mountains into the badlands, and he was not going to put the Dichada out not only for meals but for firewood and coal. If he could sleep out in the wailing wind, he could sleep by a cool hearth.

When all the Dichada had gone upstairs, Maia, Csevet, Taris, and Hithera stretched out on and under the bedlinens before the hearth. The bricks beneath the padding of the quilts were so warm that Maia wanted to groan with pleasure, just as he had when slipping into the bath at Parugo for the first time. Still, after a long blissful moment of lying upon them, he realized he felt distinctly bereft, and he wondered why.

Then he realized it was because Csevet, for the first time in two weeks, was not curled up against him.

Maia suppressed a sigh, then a laugh. _If reclaim’st thy throne, wilt sleep alone in that vast bed again, at least until hast a bride,_ said the voice of Edrehasivar in his head. _Perhaps shouldst reaccustom thyself._

 _Perhaps I should,_ Maia thought back at it. He still felt bereft, but after four days and three nights of crossing the badlands, followed by the reunion with his nieces, he could not stay awake for long.

Many hours later, he blinked, and whatever comforting yet indistinct dream he’d been having evaporated into the cool, dark air around him. Where he was, why he was there, returned to him over many slow seconds as he blinked harder and curled around the warm, solid weight against —

Maia blinked yet again. _What? But Csevet sleeps apart from me —_

— but Csevet did not sleep apart from him now. His body lay flush against Maia’s between the layers of quilts, his head pillowed on Maia’s shoulder, insomuch as the newly rounded muscle there could be deemed pillowlike. Maia looked down upon the inverted triangle of his face, peaceful in repose.

Csevet’s lashes fanned out toward the finely wrought peaks of his cheekbones, white on white. The bow of his lips was soft, relaxed, and his breathing was easy and even. His hair, like Maia’s, had grown out considerably since each had taken the shears to the other’s head, two long months ago — _that long,_ Maia marveled. But for neither of them had it yet grown long enough again to braid for sleeping, and Csevet’s had become quite mussed in the night. With a fond amusement, Maia thought, _I should treasure this view, for I may never see him in such charming disarray again._

Then the white lashes fluttered, and one slender hand rose to press back a yawn — and froze.

Maia closed his own eyes quickly, struggling to remain relaxed, that Csevet did not suspect he was awake. A few seconds later, he heard a very quiet, very sleepy — perhaps _too_ sleepy — “Serenity?”

“Mmph,” was Maia’s noncommittal grunt of reply.

Csevet’s head shifted on Maia’s shoulder.

“You aren’t truly asleep… are you?”

Maia’s eyes flew open again, and he started at the sight of the open, knowing grey ones so close to his own. He permitted himself another blink, and, with less sleep in his voice now, he said the first thing that came to mind: “We could not have been blessed with a more perceptive secretary.”

“We apologize, Serenity,” Csevet said, a hint of tension in his voice and shoulders now. “We did not mean to … close the space between us in our sleep like this.”

“We aren’t offended,” Maia said quietly. “We have grown accustomed to … communal sleeping, just as we have to communal bathing. As the Rishonada would say, it was passing strange at first to be sleeping otherwise last night.”

A slow, slow smile spread over Csevet’s face. Maia remembered it from the bathhouse in Rishonee — the curve of Csevet’s lips, the softness to his gaze. “As it was on our part, Serenity.” Then Csevet’s mouth twitched. “We regret to say that it’s probably wisest for the two of us to move apart. We don’t know if the hunting party saw us like this before they departed, but we’d fain not be so when Merrem Dicharan and the younger girl come downstairs.”

“We agree,” Maia said, with the same regret that Csevet had professed. He stifled his own yawn behind his hand. “What’s the clock, do you know?”

Csevet lifted his head to squint at the windows. The panes were glass, though rather old, and a faint light was creeping in between the slats of the shutters covering them. “Not long before seven, we think.” He moved back, away from Maia, and then stood and stretched. The pop and crack of his joints was loud in the near-silent room.

“Are you awake?” a girlish voice called softly from the stair, speaking in the plural. Silan, Maia remembered her name was.

“We are,” Csevet called out, likewise in the plural. “Fair morning, Min Dichin.”

“Fair morning, Serenity, Mer Aisava.” Silan took a few steps down; she was fully dressed. “We and Mama were planning to cleanse your clothes today for you. We’ve saddle soap and neatsfoot oil for your leathers.”

“That’s very kind of you, Min Dichin,” Maia said with a smile.

The girl ducked her head deferentially and executed a curtsey as best she could while standing on a staircase. “Mama will be down shortly, along with the dach’osmichen. We’ll start breakfast for all of us.”

“Thank you, Min Dichin,” Csevet said, smiling warmly at her.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Silan said, returning the smile shyly with color in her cheeks and ears. Maia wondered if, other than her brothers, she encountered many young men at all. He remembered Hesero Nelaran, and he wondered how he would have reacted to a pretty girl suddenly appearing at Edonomee. _Likely without half this child’s aplomb… Edrehasivar Half-Tongue._

Not long after, Merrem Dicharan descended the stairs as promised, holding Mireän by the right hand and Ino by the left. The little girls helped her and Silan set the table, and then all six of them sat down to a breakfast of rye toast fried in egg and butter with onions, accompanied by a very weak apple cider. Maia, remembering how light Mireän’s basket had been the day before and how last night’s supper had contained no actual meat, suspected the Dichada were threading the needle between generous hospitality and making ends meet. Today, for once, he would be exerting himself relatively little, so he ate as modestly as his gut would permit and was glad the hunting party had eaten first. Csevet, from what he could tell, seemed to be of the same mind. Mireän and Ino ate daintily, as royal and noble girls were trained to do from the time they were weaned.

“Do you need help with the dishes, Merrem?” Mireän asked politely when breakfast was done.

Merrem Dicharan shook her head. “Nay, lass, thou and thy sister can go with His Serenity and Mer Aisava. Silan and we will take care of the kitchen.”

Shortly thereafter, Mireän led Maia, Csevet, and Ino southwest, back toward the Istandaärtha. The day was bright, clear and cold, but the newfallen snow rose about Maia’s ankles. After the second time Ino started to fall behind, Maia crouched beside her and asked, “May I carry thee?” She gave a shy nod. He swung her up easily enough, but holding her to his breast like an infant was awkward, as she was an infant no more. He remembered, barely, Chenelo carrying him on her hip when he was Ino’s age, but his own hips were too narrow for that.

“Could you bear the dach’osmichen on your shoulders, Serenity?” Csevet asked. When Maia frowned, Csevet explained: “She would be seated upon the back of your neck and shoulders, with her legs over your shoulders and collarbone. You would hold onto her ankles.”

Maia shifted Ino into place so. “Art so tall, Cousin Maia!” she crowed, her little hands gripping the brim of his fur hat. “I can see the whole badlands!” Csevet smiled.

“Canst see the spirit-stones, Ino?” Maia asked her. “The tall rocks that look like people or animals, or things out of wonder-tales?”

“….No. Can we go see those?” she asked plaintively.

“Perhaps, when the weather is warmer, we will,” he said, tugging at her ankles to keep her from falling from his shoulders.

They had walked perhaps a mile and a half, mostly uphill, when Mireän turned toward the ruins of an old stone shack, built out from the leeward side of a large, shapeless rock formation. “They’ve been living here?” Maia asked incredulously. He knew soldiers were trained to endure the elements, and dachenmazei could likely shelter themselves from them with spells, but it pained him to think of his First Nohecharei having dwelt so miserably for weeks now.

“Wait, let me show you,” Mireän said, addressing him and Csevet both.

She came to a stop a few feet from the shack, clapped her hands three times, paused, and clapped three times more. Maia’s memory flashed upon Csevet knocking so upon Foduama’s door for the first time, and his gut twisted. He tried to comfort himself with the memory of the sergeant in Chezhvaho telling his private that the soldiers of the other company had not found Foduama or Khram.

Then his jaw dropped as a tall, lanky figure in a worn blue cloak stepped _through_ the broken stones of the shack’s wall.


	9. The Stone Shack

Cala Athmaza blinked from behind his thick spectacles, took in the sight before him, and dropped to the snowy ground in full prostration. Before his face disappeared from view, Maia caught the smile of immense relief on it. “Serenity,” Cala said, his voice muffled by the snow.

“Cala,” Maia said as he set Ino down on her feet again. “Rise, please.”

The maza rose, bowed deeply to the girls, and then executed a quarter-bow in Csevet’s direction, which Csevet returned. “A pleasure to see you again, Mer Aisava. Not to mention you, Serenity. How are you?” He squinted. “You look rather the worse for wear.”

“For all the gods’ sakes, maza,” came an indignant voice as a slightly shorter and much broader figure stepped out from the stone wall. “Is that how you greet your emperor, who for all you knew was dead?” Lieutenant Deret Beshelar, dressed as impeccably as if he were still at the Untheileneise Court, lowered himself into full prostration and there remained longer than Cala had.

“Please, Lieutenant, stand,” Maia said finally. Beshelar obeyed, dropping the girls a deep bow and exchanging a briefer one with Csevet as Cala had.

“How did you find the dach’osmichen?” Cala asked, referring to the girls in the plural.

“We were coming south, and our supplies were running low, so we went to the Dichada farmstead to beg,” Maia said.

“We imagine this will be a long tale on your part, Serenity,” Beshelar said. “We have our own long tale to tell. Perhaps we should invite you all in.”

Csevet’s brows rose. “‘In’?”

Cala smiled sheepishly. “Forgive us the slovenly yardwork. But … well, it’s much more pleasant inside. Just walk through the stones; they won’t block your way.”

The girls passed without blinking through the stone wall, as if they’d done so many times before. Maia and Csevet moved more gingerly. But then the wall was behind them, and they were standing in a well-built, if small, stone cabin. Its hearth blazed merrily away, though there appeared to be no wood beneath the flames. A few pots hung from hooks over the fire, and there was a faint smell of roasted meat. There was no furniture other than twin pallets on the floor.

“Cala, did you … build this all, with a maz?” Maia asked, his voice soft with wonder. 

“Restored more than built, Serenity. But, yes. It wasn’t terribly hard.”

“After the first few days, in any event,” Beshelar muttered.

“Indeed, we wouldn’t have gotten through them without your help,” Cala said.

A thousand questions hammered at the inside of Maia’s skull as he leaned against the cabin’s rear wall. “Cala, Lieutenant, we would ask you to begin your account at Winternight. Mer Aisava, who fetched us from Azharee, told us what had occurred before that point. We were in Celvaz when we heard there had been a second coup — and who staged it,” he ended grimly.

The line of Beshelar’s mouth hardened. “In sum, Serenity, Dach’osmer Tethimar locked the Prince of the Untheileneise Court — excuse us, Varenechibel Zhas — away immediately, with Dazhis Athmaza as his sole maza-nohecharis and some of his own men as soldier-guards. He did not trust us, Cala, or Telimezh to guard him.”

“And Dazhis placed an extremely powerful maz on those locks. Not only against their unlocking, but against other mazei even being able to scry into the suite where… the young zhas was being kept. Even other dachenmazei.” Cala spoke those words with a dead, bleak softness.

Maia’s heart ached for him. “There was no possible mazeise counteraction to that?” he asked. “Could not the Adremaza have done anything?”

Cala shook his head. “The Adremaza is not without his mazeise powers, Serenity, but he was chosen for his political ones. He is not dachenmaza. There are so few dachenmazei left, since …”

“The airship crash,” Maia said flatly.

“Yes, Serenity. We know of one other, besides ourself, and — save for being able to cast a revethmaz if needed — neither of us is quite as skillful in the same sorts of magic as Dazhis. There are future dachenmazei among those being schooled at the Athmaz’are, but they are very green. To try to wield that sort of power when one is untrained and untried is to court harm to oneself and others.”

“Thus, Serenity, the Archduchess Vedero took us aside,” Beshelar said tensely, speaking in the plural. “She ordered us to flee Cetho with the little girls. Their nursemaid had disappeared within a few hours of the second coup, and since then they had been more or less ignored. The archduchess gave us a full purse of modest coins, that we would have resources for the journey but not draw attention to ourselves with anything that smacked of wealth.

“We refused, at first, for we did not wish to abandon the young zhas, even when she predicted that Dach’osmer Tethimar would very likely have Cala and ourself assassinated or even executed before long. She also pointed out that Dach’osmichen Mireän and Ino no longer had any kin with the legal standing to protect them — no father, grandfather, or uncles; or even their mother, who could have invoked maternal rights in the absence of the rest. But we did not accede to her wishes until she told us that Dach’osmer Tethimar has … proclivities that have long been the subject of rumor.”

“Those rumors are true,” Csevet said, sounding as bleak as Cala had when speaking of Dazhis.

Both Beshelar and Cala stared at him, eyes wide. Hastily he added, “We were not … harmed by Dach’osmer Tethimar, not in that manner. But, as a courier, we were witness to his depravity. It is not a story we wish to tell at the moment, for obvious reasons.”

Beshelar’s face was bone-white with barely suppressed rage, his ears flat to his skull. “Forgive us, Serenity, for leaving the young zhas in his hands. But we had no power to protect him from Dach’osmer Tethimar, regardless. The archduchess was emphatic we do what we could to protect his sisters.”

“And the archduchess herself?” Maia said, his breakfast roiling in his gut. “Dach’osmer Tethimar wished to marry her.”

“Dach’osmer Tethimar no longer needs her as his path to power, Serenity,” Csevet said. “Not now that he is regent over Varenechibel Zhas.”

The word _over_ magnified Maia’s nausea. “Does she remain at court?”

“She does not, Serenity,” Cala said. “We have scried the Untheileneise Court since we left, and she is no longer there. We … inquired, in a mazeise fashion, with friends at the Athmaz’are, and they told us the archduchess is rumored to have fled under cover of night with her most trusted servants, to where we know not. A few of those friends have made a circuit of court, and they sensed no signs of violence that might have been perpetrated against her. But … if Your Serenity will forgive us for speaking bluntly in this matter, court is not the only possible place for same, and we do not know what Dazhis might have been concealing from the senses of our friends.”

“Until we hear otherwise, we will choose to believe she fled successfully, as we can do nothing for her at the moment,” Maia said with more resoluteness than he felt.

“Yes, Serenity. We should also inform you that nothing has been seen or heard of Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin for nearly as long,” Cala said tensely.

Maia closed his eyes. He did not feel anywhere near as protective of Dach’osmin Ceredin as he did of Vedero; he sensed that she would, if anything, scorn his protection. But neither did he like to think of anything ill befalling her.

“Could her family have hidden her away, that she would not attract Dach’osmer Tethimar’s attention?” Csevet asked.

“It’s possible, Mer Aisava,” Cala said. “But, if so, her parents are extraordinarily good actors, for both have been seen about court with eyes red from weeping.”

Once more mustering a façade of conviction, Maia said, “An Dach’osmer Tethimar had abducted her, we imagine he would certainly boast of it. For now we will therefore assume she is safe as well, whether or not she is with our sister.”

And then came yet another uncertainty to make his stomach lurch. “Telimezh is not with you. Does he live? Is he all right?”

Cala sighed; the sound was barely perceptible, but his thin chest heaved. “Telimezh, Serenity, left court shortly before the archduchess approached us. He blames himself for the success of the first coup, without which, he said, the second likely would never have happened. He believes he failed you, Serenity.”

“But he did no such thing,” Maia protested. “The cantrip Dazhis used was very strong.”

“He blames himself for not having seen Dazhis’s treachery before the coup,” Cala said. The bleakness was back in his voice, and Maia thought, _And you blame yourself as well._ He knew that they had known each other, of course, as fellow mazei before they had become his nohecharei; he had never wondered how well. He cursed himself, now, for not having been more curious about all the many connections that had surrounded him as emperor.

“He could not resign his duties under Princess Sheveän, Serenity,” Beshelar said, “but he had no more duties under the young zhas. We,” meaning himself and Cala, “could not talk him out of it.”

“At first he’d gone to the Mazan’theileian, seeking to commit revethvoran,” Cala said with a shudder in his voice. “He was refused the use of the Lesser Courtyard or the revethvoreis’atha. In fact, we understand Sehalis Adremaza personally told Telimezh that, as Dazhis had been one of his own protégés, he himself would have been a far more just candidate for revethvoran.”

“Is Telimezh still alive?” Maia repeated, wondering if the nohecharis might have chosen to spill his own blood without benefit of the rituals of Ulis. It was considered an affront to the gods, Ulis in particular, but Telimezh might have preferred a death of his own choosing to the disgrace he believed he existed under.

“In the end, Serenity, the Adremaza convinced him that if he felt unable to remain at court, he should go home to Thu-Evresar,” Cala said. “And he told us he would, via airship to Aveio, and presumably on horseback onward. Our final sight of him was as he walked out of the Alcethmeret for the last time.”

“We did not know he was from Thu-Evresar,” Maia said, rather stupidly. “He did not have the accent.”

“It was trained out of him in the Untheileneise Guard, Serenity,” Beshelar said.

Maia nodded. “So… you took the dach’osmichen and fled.”

“We cast a disguising maz over us all, that we might get out of Cetho without being recognized, Serenity,” Cala said. “Then we fled northwest in a wagon full of refugees, with whom we blended well enough. In Ezho, we found shelter … of a sort.”

“A cold, damp cellar with a broken window,” Beshelar said curtly.

“And crowded with refugees,” Cala added. “Ezho itself was crowded with refugees, to the point that finding lodgings at all was difficult. We decided, Beshelar and ourself, that the cellar might be a blessing in disguise, as we would all be less conspicuous. It did have a hearth, but our spot was nowhere near it. We didn’t wish to raise the suspicions of others by lighting a fuelless fire.”

“All sorts of fevers were circulating among the other refugees, Serenity,” Beshelar said grimly. “There were two in the wagon who never ceased to cough. We were not in Ezho one day before both dach’osmichen fell ill, and the medicine we purchased there with the archduchess’s coin, at _greatly_ inflated cost we should add, was not sufficient to restore them to health. Cala Athmaza quite spent his powers in doing so.”

“Healing is not the strongest of our mazeise gifts, Serenity,” Cala said apologetically. “There’s a mazo we know who is a cleric of Csaivo, and we tried to employ the strategies she’d taught us, but unfortunately they were not as effective in our hands.”

“And likely a greater drain on your strength than they would have been on hers,” Beshelar said. “Especially in those conditions. As soon as the girls were hale again, Serenity, we moved on from Ezho in search of more-salubrious living quarters. And no sooner were we on the road once more, on foot this time, than Cala himself began to shiver and cough.”

Maia went cold all over. “Were you seriously ill, maza?”

“He nearly _died,”_ Beshelar snapped. Csevet’s ears flagged, and Maia struggled to keep his own up.

As if Beshelar had not revealed this, Cala continued calmly in the formal, “We were still quite sensible, Serenity, when the wagon stopped to permit passengers to answer calls of nature. Beshelar roamed a bit to the east, then returned and told us we would not be re-embarking. We settled with the driver, and then we all came to this shack. It was … as you saw it, before we stepped out of it just now.”

“And you were too ill to repair it, or start a fire, are we correct?” Maia said, his pitch rising and his volume growing in stupefaction. “So you lay ill in a ruined shack in winter, in the badlands, with no fire to warm you or to cook food over, for how many days?”

“We defer to Beshelar on that count, Serenity, as we were … in no condition to mark time,” Cala said drily.

“About three days,” Beshelar said harshly. “We would have started a fire with flint and steel, Serenity, but there was no fuel to be had. We had to … warm the maza ourself, with body heat.” His face was a dull red now, and one corner of Cala’s mouth was quirking upward.

Maia, recalling the root cellar in Talorathee, was glad his own skin was too dark and the firelight too reddish for his blush to be perceived. He hoped neither nohecharis would look at Csevet for a good minute. “And that was sufficient?”

“Barely, Serenity. But we had a little food and medicine left from Ezho, and Cala Athmaza managed to pull through.”

“And so… how did the dach’osmichen find the Dichada?”

“When first we found this shack, Serenity, we knew by the woodsmoke on the air that there was like to be a farmstead nearby,” Beshelar said, “which we confirmed in our brief exploration. The disguising maz had worn off, and Cala Athmaza was unable to recast it, but we were all bedraggled enough by then; he could not cast a washing maz on us, either, to keep us clean. We carried Cala Athmaza to this cabin, with the dach’osmichen following us. Then we told Dach’osmichen Mireän to take Dach’osmichen Ino to the farmstead, tell the lady of the house that they were orphans fleeing Cetho, and beg a place to sleep and some food. We said they would likely have to work for their keep, which is not at all proper for the daughters of a princess but which would be necessary in this unusual circumstance. They were not distressed by this.”

“I like helping Merrem Dicharan,” Mireän said. “She’s nice. I like the chickens. They pecked me a few times and it hurt, but now I can gather their eggs without making them angry. Valto taught me how to milk the goat too.” Beshelar did not contradict her, as she was his better and he not her tutor, but his expression made it very clear what he thought of her performing such tasks, as well as his satisfaction that she soon would be doing no more such inappropriate things.

By contrast, Cala’s mouth was quirking again. “In any event, Serenity,” he said, “after the first few days we recovered enough of our strength to start a fire without wood, and to set the stones of the cabin back into place and keep them together without mortar. Then we cast a concealing maz over the entire thing, so that it looked no different than before. Few if any people pass by here, but Beshelar did spot a hunter once, so we thought the maz wise. Beshelar has trapped hares for us, and Dach’osmichen Mireän has twice brought us as many supplies as she could bring without raising the suspicions of her hosts.” He bowed deeply to the girl, who smiled up at him. “We felt, however, having scried the Dichada farmstead a few times, that the dach’osmichen were better off with them than with us for the moment.”

“Did you know that soldiers came to speak to the Dichada?” Csevet asked.

Beshelar frowned. “We did not, Mer Aisava. That must have been before we came here.”

“Thank the gods,” Cala muttered. “We couldn’t have cast a good disguising maz upon the dach’osmichen at a distance.”

Something occurred to Maia. “Cala… you say Dazhis concealed his locks from you. That is not the same sort of magic as concealing a building, or disguising a person?”

He instantly regretted the question, for the mention of Dazhis brought the defeated look back into Cala’s eyes. The maza said, “It is not so much … the results of his magic, Serenity, as the source of it. We are forbidden by oath from discussing the details, and it is not fit for the ears of the dach’osmichen.”

“We see,” Maia said. Half of him burned to know more. The other half was relieved Cala was forsworn from speaking of it at all.

“As for all that has befallen us over the last several months… Serenity, perhaps you would like to recite the story?” Csevet asked. There was an unspoken message in the set of his brows and that of his ears.

Maia understood it implicitly. “Yes, Csevet, indeed we would.”

The story he began to tell his First Nohecharei was considerably condensed and censored. There was no need, he thought, for the girls to ever know about the assassination attempt; he could inform Cala and Beshelar of it later. There was no need for any of them to know of the ogre or Maia’s bronchine: the nohecharei would have been distressed by both, and to no purpose that Maia could discern. He mentioned in passing that two men at Parugo had been hostile to Maia and Csevet and, later, had eagerly betrayed them to the Ethuverazheise military. As for the soldiers in Chezhvaho, he lied outright that they had never seen or heard Maia and Csevet in the alley. From the corner of his eye he saw the color of Csevet’s face darken as Maia spoke of it, but he did not shift his gaze to Csevet, lest it draw the curiosity of the nohecharei.

“The gods have smiled upon you, Serenity,” Beshelar said emphatically. “The Osreialhalans in the depths of winter are dangerous to those unfamiliar with them, and the badlands not much better.”

“Indeed, they have smiled upon us, and we are eternally grateful,” Maia said. His hand found its way once more into his cloak pocket, where it stroked the outside of the icon. He found himself thinking, _When we have regained our throne, we will dedicate funds to renovating the Ulimeire in Cetho, we will build or restore othasmeires wherever they are in need, and we will meet with Archprelate Tethimar…_

He cut the thought short. He had not yet retaken the throne. He would do best to devote his limited and taxed energies to plans for accomplishing this mission, rather than spin them away in fantasy.

“Serenity,” Beshelar was saying. “Cala Athmaza and ourself will, of course, not part from you again so long as we live. However,” and here he shifted back to the plural, “we are eager to know your plans. We presume that, as you have come south again, you intend to retake the throne. What is your strategy for doing so?”

Maia felt eerily as if his First Nohecharis had read his mind. He dug his teeth into his inner cheek to calm himself; to stammer or make apologies for his short-sightedness would be no help to the morale of his nohecharei. “We are not a military strategist; we know not the first thing of war. We knew only that we must return, and we had, still have, faith in the gods that a plan would germinate and cohere in our mind or that of one we could trust.”

Nobody replied at first. Beshelar looked as though he were repressing a scowl; Cala looked bleak again; Csevet had retreated behind his stone mask. The only voices were those of the girls, sitting before the fire and murmuring contentedly to one another. Ino’s hand was in Mireän’s, and Maia tried to draw warmth and strength from the sight of it.

At length, Beshelar said, “It seems, Serenity, that we will all have to keep such faith, for we are no strategist, either, nor more of a tactician than any other soldier.”

Maia clung to the thought that struck him just then, as a foundering man clings to a life-rope. “Do most of the Untheileneise Guard still serve at court?”

“A dozen and a half deserted outright after Winternight, Serenity.” Beshelar’s mouth went flat and hard.

“We do not suppose … the deserters could be mustered,” Maia said, Beshelar’s expression discouraging him from inflecting the sentence as a question.

“It is not likely, Serenity. Regardless of why they left, they broke ranks, meaning one cannot count on them. Not to mention that Untheileneise Guardsmen hail from all across the Ethuveraz. It would be difficult to disseminate a message to all of them safely and certainly.”

Maia closed his eyes. Though he had done no more today than walk a mile and a half in calm if cold weather, he suddenly felt drained. It occurred to him that, as hale and strong as he had grown in his labors and journeys, the part of his mind that had served him on the throne, honed by Setheris both intentionally and unintentionally, had slackened with disuse.

_Wilt have to remedy that, hobgoblin. Thou canst be emperor or thou canst be dead. Which dost thou prefer?_

He opened his eyes again and focused sharply on Beshelar. “We agree with you, Lieutenant, that for the moment we must continue to head southeast on faith alone. As you say, the gods stand behind us; there could be no stronger sign of their favor than the chance meeting last night which led us here to you today. As we approach Cetho we will obtain newer and better intelligence, and perhaps we will find others to march alongside us, such as the young man who accompanied us down from the Osreialhalans and who is now off hunting with the Dichada. Cala, you mentioned friends in the Athmaz’are; would they ally with us, and are there others whose help we might obtain?”

“We can’t speak for any of them, Serenity, but the odds are good,” Cala said. “The betrayal of Dazhis Athmaza is … a matter of personal honor for many.” And, for a moment, his blue eyes were uncharacteristically cold behind his spectacles.

“Given what you said of … the source of his powers, would it be possible?” Maia pressed. “Even with a dozen or more mazei against him, given that only you and another are dachenmaza?” Better, he thought, not to try to seed a barren ground with hope.

“It is … not something that has been attempted before. We do not know of its possibility or impossibility. But we are willing to try, and we are assuredly not the only maza willing to die in the attempt. With absolutely no disrespect meant to you, Serenity, there are stakes in this matter that go well beyond the throne of the Ethuveraz.”

A cold fingertip ran down Maia’s spine, and despite the warmth of the cabin he repressed a shiver. “We imagine there are.”

“What are your immediate plans, Serenity?” Beshelar asked.

“For the rest of today, we had none in particular. We did plan, however, on returning to the farmstead for the night. In the morning, the four of us, our man from the Osreialhalans, his younger brother, and the dach’osmichen will set out —”

Beshelar’s eyes widened. “Serenity,” he said, the sternness in his voice edged with fear. “Forgive us, we know we presume too much, but we took the dach’osmichen from Cetho, nearly at the cost of their lives and of Cala Athmaza’s life as well, to protect them. We do not understand why you would bring them back there.”

The answer did not come as swiftly to Maia as it might have before Azharee, but the old mental muscles were stretching and reawakening. “We were already seen by many in a village upriver, if not by those who hunt us. As we head southeast, into better-populated regions, we will be seen by more. It is inevitable that enough sightings of us will reach the ears of our seekers for them to reconstruct our path downriver. And they will pay the Dichada another visit, and they will tear the farmhouse apart.” _As they tore Foduama’s house apart._ “In the badlands, in winter, there will be no place for the girls to hide.”

He paused for effect, noted the grim faces of his men, and added, “While they are with us, Cala can disguise them as well as the rest of us — and we can provide for them out of our half-sister’s purse, or by the sweat of our brow if need be.” Refusing to acknowledge the flash of indignant protest in Beshelar’s eyes, Maia added, “Whereas the Dichada’s resources, to us, seem to be thinning.”

Beshelar frowned. “Do you order us to leave your side again, Serenity? What an your pursuers come again to the farmstead while you are there?”

Maia thought for a moment. “Have you still meat in reserve?”

“Yes, Serenity.”

“Then bring it with you to the house. You can share what you do not eat with the family, and they can spare some vegetables for you in turn; it would be to the benefit of all of us.”

***

By the time the six of them returned to the Dichada farmhouse, so had the hunting party, quite a while before. Valto was turning a side of venison on a spit over the hearth, and pots of vegetables hung over the fire all around the spit. The aromas floating on the air made Maia’s stomach growl and his mouth water.

The Dichada’s ears went back at the sight of a soldier by Maia’s side, the Drazhadeise crest on his baldric notwithstanding, and their glances at Cala made Maia suspect the hair on their napes was standing on end. The Rishonadeisei looked no less alarmed. Maia quickly introduced Cala and Beshelar as his First Nohecharei, which seemed to allay everyone’s outright fear if not their wariness. They were even more nonplussed when Cala and Beshelar bowed to them all. It was not until Beshelar offered the Dichada two hares as contribution to the supper table that they began to let down their guards. Merrem Dicharan made the same ritual protests that Maia recalled Bitëan Rishonaran making, but in the end the hares were carried downstairs to the Dichada’s cellar, and Mer Dichar announced they would all dine on the venison that had been brought back in generous portions.

Beshelar politely inquired whether there were a spot where he might sleep for a few hours — “One of us must be awake tonight to guard His Serenity” — and Merrem Dicharan had her younger son lead him upstairs. Shortly thereafter, Silan took Ino upstairs to settle her in for her own nap. Cala spent the remainder of the time before supper fending numerous questions about mazei from the decreasingly wary and increasingly curious Dichada children and Rishonadeise boys, all the while keeping his eye on Maia. Even Mer Dichar gathered enough courage to make a query or two. For all that Beshelar loved to lament Cala’s lack of propriety, Maia noted how deftly the maza deflected any questions he was forbidden by oath to answer, or which would have been impolitic to answer, with not even a beat of awkwardness.

When supper was ready, Beshelar and Ino were fetched back downstairs. Mer Dichar asked his wife, “Have we enough chairs for His Serenity’s nohecharei?”

Beshelar shook his head; not a hair in his topknot had been mussed in his sleep, it seemed. “We will stand guard, Mer Dichar, and eat later,” he said in the plural.

“Are you sure, Lieutenant?” Merrem Dicharan asked.

“Very sure. It is what we have always done for His Serenity, in the short time we have served him, and it is what we will do for him so long as we all remain alive.”

The Dichada did not press the First Nohecharei further, sensing it was a matter beyond their depth. Neither did Maia, remembering Cala’s words to him: _Serenity, we cannot be your friend._ It was enough, he told himself, that they were all reunited and unharmed. And, as he watched their faces while the rest of them took their seats, perhaps it was a comfort to them to return to the old routine, no matter that they stood not in a palace as large as a city but in an isolated farmhouse in the badlands.

Conversation began with the topic of Maia and Csevet’s reunion with them, and about Maia’s plans for the morrow. The Dichadeise womenfolk, once reassured that the little girls would be safe with Maia and his men, seemed genuinely saddened that they would be saying farewell to them soon. Mireän smiled modestly and ducked her head with a quiet thanks. Ino exclaimed, “I like the Dichada, Cousin Maia! Can we come back to visit?”, which drew chuckles from the adults and adolescents, as well as a promise from Maia that he would do his best to ensure it would happen.

“Of course, we could always invite the Dichada to court as honored guests to our recoronation,” he added.

Merrem Dicharan gasped, as did Silan. “What would we ever wear to court?” Merrem Dicharan exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air, but her eyes sparkled.

“His Serenity’s Master of Wardrobe would turn you all out splendidly,” Csevet reassured her, which elicited more handwringing and blushing. Valto smiled, though she did not seem as excited at the prospect as her mother or sister. Mer Dichar snorted, but he did not look displeased. The Dichadeise boys looked uncomfortable. Maia, remembering his very first steps into the awe-inspiring and dangerous terrain that was the Untheileneise Court after a lifetime’s relegation to backwater estates, felt a stab of sympathy for them.

Talk then turned to the events of the day’s hunt. Taris had taken down one of the three deer brought back, and Hithera his second hare. Mer Dichar and Tiba spoke of both Rishonadeisei with admiration, leading Taris to smile self-effacingly and Hithera to beam with unexpected praise — even more so when the farmer ruffled his hair and flicked his ear.

“Min Dichin shot well, too,” Taris offered, speaking of Valto. “The doe never saw the arrow coming.”

Valto smiled faintly as she reached for one of her mother’s rolls of bread. “We’ve a lot of practice, Mer Rishonar. Been hunting on this land since we were old enough to hold a bow.” She paused, her smile fading, as she looked directly at Maia. “In fact, Serenity, we were wondering….” The entire table turned to look at her. She darted her gaze at her parents, bit her lower lip, and said bluntly, “… whether you could use another archer with your party.”

“Gods, _no!”_ Mer Dichar and Merrem Dicharan exclaimed in unison. Maia flinched, remembering the similar scene at Rishonee. He could see shoulders stiffening and ears flagging around the table.

“Why not?” the girl demanded, squaring her broad shoulders.

“‘Why not,’” her father mimicked her. His ears were flat to his head. “Art an idiot, Valto? Art offering to go to _war!_ Know’st what happens in war — especially to women?”

Valto rolled her eyes. “I doubt any would be _that_ keen to rob me of my virtue.”

Mer Dichar slapped his palm to his face. “An idiot, and an innocent.”

“I can fight well enough!” Valto said affrontedly. “With my fists, not just a bow and arrow. Or a with knife.”

“None of which will be enough to protect thee an soldiers take thee,” Mer Dichar said, choking on the last few words and eliciting a soft cry of despair from his wife.

Valto looked stricken for a moment, as though she had not anticipated how grieved her parents might be. Then she said, less aggressively, “Papa … _one_ of us should go with them. We know the southern badlands, they don’t. I can help His Serenity and his men take care of the dach’osmichen — ”

“The dach’osmichen are more than welcome to remain here!” Merrem Dicharan said plaintively.

Maia shook his head. “Merrem Dicharan, as we said, they would be in more danger here. Our maza can disguise them, but not from a distance. If the soldiers return, and we suspect they will, all your lives will be forfeit an they find our nieces here.”

“Valto… I’ll go,” Tiba said, looking vaguely ashamed of himself.

Valto shook her head. “Nay, Tiba. Art a better farmer than I am, and Veveän Csimedin will be furious with us all if we let thee go off to war. _I’ll_ be furious with _myself._ Shouldst ask her to marry thee this coming year, now that you’re both in your majority and she has her dowry, and start working on giving Mama and Papa some grandchildren.” Tiba blushed, his ears dropping even lower. “Last time I checked, after all,” his sister continued, “there were no offers for _my_ hand.”

“Young men are fools,” Mer Dichar muttered. “Wouldst make someone an excellent wife. Other than that art a fool, too, it seems.”

He fell silent, as did the rest of the table. A fork clinked loudly against a plate. Maia kept his eyes on his food until something about the silence struck him as odd, then looked up — to see all eyes on him.

He took a deep breath. “Min Dichin,” he said, looking at Valto. “You are of age, yes? Seventeen?”

“We are, Serenity.”

“She is our daughter, not our son, and she is bound by our yea or nay,” Mer Dichar snapped. Maia’s heart fell. Tiba, at sixteen, would have been free to walk out the door with them all, his parents willing or not.

“Mer Dichar…” Maia paused for a second, then said, “We will not gainsay your word by commanding your daughter to follow us. But we urge you to let her come with us. It would indeed not be amiss to have a woman along, to help care for the dach’osmichen in … womanly matters. Our maza can disguise her as well.” Praying that the Lady of the Stars would forgive him should it transpire to be untrue, he added, “If the dangers facing us grow too intense, he has mazeise allies who can hide her along with our nieces. And … we do not wish to distress you, but with so many refugees streaming out of the eastern Ethuveraz in all directions — not to mention soldiers combing every inch of the empire — we are no longer convinced there will be any truly safe place within our borders until we are restored to our throne.”

Every adult and adolescent face around the table looked grim. Hithera looked as guilty as Tiba Dichar. Mireän was trying very hard not to look fearful and not quite succeeding. Ino, though she had likely understood one word in five of what had been said, had picked up on the tension in the room and, quite against her training, was fidgeting in her chair.

Mer Dichar pulled his napkin from his throat and tossed it to his plate. Then he rose with a muttered “Excuse us,” grabbed his cloak and hat, and walked from the farmhouse, closing the door smartly behind him.

Valto seemed to deflate at the sound of it, her ears foundering. “Forgive us, Serenity,” she muttered. “We have ruined supper entirely, and we have disrespected our parents before guests. We are ashamed of our behavior.” Her mother said nothing, but her mouth was a hard line, and she was blinking rapidly.

“We are deeply grateful for your offer of service,” Maia said emphatically. “As well as for your entire family’s generosity, and courage as well. We could not have asked for better hosts, and we will always remember your kindness.”

There was a soft sniffle from Merrem Dicharan. “Oh, Mama,” Valto said, the stricken look back on her face. She reached over and took her mother’s well-lined hand. Maia suspected that if it had been only the family alone, Merrem Dicharan would have pleaded tearfully that her elder daughter not leave her.

Silan rose, then, face composed and ears set but eyes troubled, and began to clear the table of empty plates. Mireän, her mien much the same, rose without a word to help her, and she pulled Ino along by the wrist. Beshelar’s face was stony, but it had been stony throughout the earlier argument too. Cala’s was carefully blank, as were Csevet’s and Taris’s. The Dichadeise boys looked down at their plates awkwardly. Hithera, staring at Valto and Merrem Dicharan, looked every bit as stricken as the elder daughter.

Eventually the farmwife pulled her hand out of her daughter’s clasp and rose from the table with a sigh. Valto, attempting to compose her face and ears and not succeeding completely, followed her lead in gathering up more dishes from the table and, with her younger sister, carrying them to the sink in the corner of the great room that served as a kitchen. In the quiet, Maia heard the sound of knives scraping bits of food off ceramic.

Merrem Dicharan said something to Valto, too softly for Maia to make out the words, but her tone was tense. Valto turned about, retrieved her own cloak and hat, and walked out the front door into the twilight. Maia flinched again, half-expecting to hear muffled shouts between the girl and her father from outside. But none came.

Silan returned to tableside. “Serenity, anyone else… would you care for some pie, or perhaps a glass of metheglin?”

“We are fine, thank you, Min Dichin,” Maia said. “We would prefer to rise now and let our nohecharei have their supper, and our other men may remain seated or rise as they will.”

“Oh —” Silan blushed. “We’re very sorry, Lieutenant, maza. We’ll fix you plates right now.”

“It is no worry,” Beshelar said, his tone neutral. “We appreciate your generosity, Min Dichin. Cala Athmaza may dine first, and then we will take our meal.”

The girl curtsied and returned to the kitchen area. Maia stood, then, and Beshelar and Csevet with him. Taris and Hithera remained seated, looking awkward about it despite Maia’s earlier words. Maia pointedly walked as far from the table as possible without leaving the farmhouse, which was close to the front door, and Beshelar and Csevet followed.

Silan returned to the table with a full plate, which she set down in a spot that had already been cleared, and Cala took his seat. “Thank you, Min Dichin,” he said mildly. “This looks delicious.” Silan blushed again and retreated to the safety of the sink area. She then returned with small plates of fruit pie for the Rishonadeise boys, who brightened considerably at the sight of them.

The front door opened then, blasting Maia, Csevet, and Beshelar with cold air. Valto walked in, followed by Mer Dichar. Her eyes were red, and there were tracks of tears on her cheeks, but she did not seem to have the stricken look of earlier. The farmer looked weary, resigned, and sad.

“Oh — sorry, Serenity,” Valto, said, curtsying roughly; her voice was thick. “We did not expect to see you there.”

Maia was about to tell her it was no worry when Mer Dichar said gruffly, “Serenity, our daughter will join you on the morrow. It is very much against our wishes, and those of her mother, but she has convinced us that it is the best of various undesirable courses of action.”

Relief and sorrow contended in Maia’s breast. He drew another deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “We thank you, Mer Dichar. As we promised, we will keep her as safe as possible.”

Mer Dichar nodded. His expression made Maia want to reach for his hand or his shoulder, but … the Ethuverazhid Zhas did not comfort anyone in such a manner, let alone a common farmer. He watched the man hang up his outdoor clothes, then make his way slowly, beatenly, up the stairs.

Valto walked to the kitchen area and said a few soft words to her mother. From what Maia could see and hear, Merrem Dicharan did not reply, did not even turn to acknowledge her daughter. He saw Valto’s shoulders and ears sink again. She returned to the table a final time, where with a polite murmur to Cala she began to gather up bowls of uneaten food for storage.

A long while after, Beshelar had eaten his supper, all the remaining food was safely in the cellar, all the plates were soaking, the Dichada’s guests had availed themselves of the upstairs washstands, and the Dichada themselves were asleep in those quarters. Maia lay between layers of quilt on the swept hearth. To his left, at a distance, lay Cala. Somewhat closer, on his right, lay Csevet, with Taris and Hithera beyond. Beshelar stood guard between them all and the door.

“We must protect Min Dichin,” Taris said, staring upward at the ceiling beams. Switching from plural to formal, he added, “We should not like to see her mother’s eyes should aught befall her. Or her father’s.”

Hithera’s mouth wrenched, and he squirmed under his quilt. Maia did not sense that Taris had meant for Hithera to feel shamed anew, but he suspected that the older boy would consider it just.

“We imagine she won’t need much protection, Mer Rishonar,” Csevet said. “We knew a few girls cut from the same cloth when we were growing up in Cetho.”

“Well,” Taris said. “What her father said …” He paused. “About war, and women. It’s true, is’t not, Mer Aisava? We’ve heard tell of such things.”

There was a long pause, and then Csevet said in a tight voice, “Without broaching topics unfit for discussion before young boys, or before His Serenity for that matter… it is also true of men. Not all, but many.”

Even in the firelight, Maia could see Taris’s face whiten, and he knew he was thinking of his own brother. “Let us not worry about such things,” he said decisively, and it gladdened him to watch the tension flow out of his men’s shoulders. “Especially not on the eve of resuming our journey.”

“Indeed, Serenity,” Taris said, turning over on his side and bunching his pillow beneath his head. “A fair night to you all.”

But, despite his words, Maia was the last of them all to drift off into sleep. His dreams were haunted all night by Merrem Dicharan’s tear-stained face, which faded into Merrem Rishonaran’s, which then darkened and reshaped itself into Chenelo Drazharan’s. His mother held out her arms to Maia, who tried to leap into them as he did as a boy — and he fell, and he was lying prostrate on the floor of the farmhouse while Mer Dichar and, somehow, Mer Rishonar stood over him, berating him for a moonwitted hobgoblin who had let their children die horrifically.

“Serenity?”

Maia came awake with a start to see Cala stooped over him and Beshelar dozing in the spot where Cala had slept. It must have been very early, as no light was coming in through the shutters at all.

“We are awake,” Maia said woodenly, pushing himself into a sitting position and then rising to his feet.

Beshelar stirred, then within seconds was on his feet, straight-backed. “Good morning, Serenity, all,” he said quietly.

“Get up, thou sleepyhead,” Taris said from the other direction. Maia heard the rustle of Hithera’s quilts against the brick, then a boyish yawn. “And cover thy mouth when yawn’st.”

“Sorry, Taris. Fair morning, everyone.”

“Fair morning to thee as well, Hithera,” Csevet said quietly. “And to you, Serenity, Lieutenant, Cala, Taris.”

There was a heavy tread on the stairs. Valto emerged into sight as she descended it, wearing a long leather tunic with pockets over roughspun trousers. Mireän and Ino followed in workaday gowns cut from the same cloth as Valto’s trousers.

“Fair morning, Min Dichin,” Taris said.

“Fair morning to you all,” the girl said a low voice.

“Will the rest of your family be downstairs soon?” Maia asked her.

Valto shook her head, her pale-green eyes clouding over. “We all said our farewells last night, Serenity. It was our desire to leave so early, to avoid another … scene. Our mother remained greatly distressed, and we suspect she’ll weep all day and well into the next several days. She begs you to forgive her and the others for not saying a proper farewell to you, but she’s quite overcome and does not wish to disgrace herself further before her emperor.” She blew out her breath. “Truth be told, our other kin are not in much better spirits.”

“It would have been no disgrace,” Maia said. “But we respect their decision.”

In silence they all donned hats, cloaks, and boots. Valto descended into the cellar and shortly reascended with what seemed to Maia a heavy sack of foodstuffs and drink, though she carried it with very little effort. Taris insisted he carry at least some supplies, upon which Valto returned to the cellar and brought up a second sack, equally full. There was also a knife sheath in her hand.

“Min Dichin, Taris, can you each carry a sack along with your bow and arrows?” Maia asked.

“Pfft,” Valto said. “Can’t speak for Taris, but _we_ certainly can.” She knelt, then, and asked briskly, “Could we please ask the gentlemen present to all turn the other way around for a moment? We’d like to secure our blade.”

Maia blinked in confusion. “Your —”

“Calf sheath, Serenity,” she explained.

“Oh.” Maia, face heating, turned away from her, the others following suit.

He heard a rustle of fabric. A moment later, Valto said, “All set, and many thanks.” They turned to see her rising from a crouch, her right lower trouser leg somewhat wrinkled. She then strapped her quiver and bow onto her back. Taris already had his in place, and both of them then shouldered the heavy sacks as well without complaint. Csevet had already hefted what remained of his, Maia’s, and the Rishonadeisei’s supplies before they had arrived at the farmstead.

The nine of them filed to the farmhouse door. For a moment, in the dim light, Maia thought Valto looked as though she might cry. Then her face went stolid, her ears and jaw set. She let the others pass before her into the frigid silence of the early dawn, and then she closed the door snugly behind them all.


	10. Daiano

It was decided that they would continue southeast, further away from the Istandaärtha, for now. The immediate plan was to reach Daiano and assess the resort’s safety as a stop for the night. “We should get there a few hours after nightfall, if the weather holds,” Valto said. “If not, or if Daiano proves unsafe, we’ll have to make camp in the open.” Maia sent up a silent prayer to the Lady of the Stars that such would not be necessary.

But the weather did hold, and Valto proved as able and as knowledgeable a guide to the badlands as Taris had been to the Osreialhalans. She led them all through much safer terrain than Maia, Csevet, Taris, and Hithera had negotiated further north and west. Detours around various hazards, however, cost them some time, as did the little girls. Ino tired quickly, and Maia insisted upon being the one to carry her on his shoulders, especially as his company would not hear of permitting their emperor to carry a sack of supplies. Mireän held up longer but eventually also grew weary, and she was grown enough that carrying her slowed Valto’s stride considerably. Hithera alone of the children seemed not to mind the walk.

True to Valto’s prediction, they began to scent woodsmoke a few hours after nightfall. “Does this mean Daiano is in business after all?” Maia asked glumly.

“Not necessarily, Serenity,” Valto replied, setting Mireän down on her feet. “A small village has grown up around it to serve the resort and its customers. We would expect most of the villagers to have left if Daiano is closed, as there’d be no way to earn a living there anymore, but a few might remain. And, perhaps, refugees have taken shelter within the resort itself.”

As they entered the village, they saw only two chimneys issuing smoke. The doors and shutters of both houses were closed tight against the cold night air — and perhaps against strangers fleeing from points south and east. The other several dozen buildings were dark, silent, and likely cold.

“Lieutenant, Cala, does it seem safe enough so far?” Maia asked. He hoped it did; Ino, fast asleep, had grown heavy on his shoulders.

“So far, Serenity,” Beshelar answered. “But one or two of us should look around the village, just to make sure.”

Taris and Valto volunteered and set out quietly. They returned ten or fifteen minutes later. “We didn’t see one soul anywhere, Serenity,” Taris said. “The resort itself is tightly padlocked.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Cala and Csevet said in unison. All other heads turned to them.

“Er,” Csevet said, and Maia suspected his secretary was grateful that the darkness concealed his color. “An Cala Athmaza can undo the locks in a mazeise fashion, we are happy to yield the task to him.” Maia also suspected that the night hid a glint of amusement behind Cala’s spectacles.

When they reached the resort itself, Cala cupped his hands together and opened them slowly, revealing a glowing ball of unearthly light with no obvious source. As best Maia could tell by such illumination, Daiano minus its village was somewhere between a fifth and a quarter the size of the Untheileneise Court. A high wooden palisade surrounded it, and the front gate was indeed secured with multiple padlocks and chains. A hand-lettered sign on it, written in the plural, read:

> IN CONSIDERATION OF THE CIVIL UNREST OCCURRING IN THE ETHUVERAZ AND THE RESULTANT LACK OF CUSTOM, WE HAVE DECIDED TO CLOSE DAIANO FOR THE INDEFINITE FUTURE. WE GREATLY APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, AND WE HOPE OUR HONORED PATRONS WILL RETURN TO OUR GATES WHEN WE OPEN THEM ONCE AGAIN.

“Can you unlock the padlocks while maintaining that light, maza?” Beshelar asked.

“We can unlock them _without_ maintaining it,” Cala replied. He flexed his hands, and the darkness fell over them all once more. Then Maia heard him whispering a stream of words that sounded familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like an old and long-forgotten dialect of Ethuverazhin. There followed the soft clinking of metal on metal. When Cala summoned the ball of light again, every single padlock hung open on its chain.

“Ha!” Hithera, wide-eyed, exclaimed.

Something occurred to Maia. “Will that not draw suspicion?”

“That’s what a disguising maz is for, Serenity,” Cala said with a faint trace of amusement.

Beshelar dragged open the gate on its well-oiled hinges, they all filed in, and he closed it behind them. Once inside the front building and with its heavy door shut behind them, they shuffled as if of one mind to form a sort of knot, with Cala at the center so that none of them would stumble in darkness.

“Give us one second, please,” Cala said, extinguishing the light again and muttering another cryptic stream of words. Then he announced, “The disguising maz on the front gate is secure,” and the eerie ball once more glowed between his palms.

The front desk was wide, deep, and curved. Behind it stood a towering cabinet of at least a hundred tiny cubicles, and in nearly every one a key hung from a hook, a stiff, waxed tag tied to its stem by a thread. Against the walls of the receiving room were couches and chairs with ornate scrollwork and thick velvet upholstery. Valto ran a finger over the carvings of one armrest. “Not much dust. They didn’t close up all that long ago, we’d wager.”

“Have you been here before, Min Dichin?” Maia asked.

“We have, Serenity. Our father’s one of various farmers contracted to provision Daiano with foodstuffs, in his case game meats. We’ve made deliveries here before. However,” she added drily, “this is the first time we’ve been inside the front entrance.”

“There’s a map here,” Taris said, squinting at something hanging on a pillar just beyond the furniture. The adults gathered around it and peered.

The heart of the resort was the spring itself and the caves it bubbled through. The resort had been built around them, its buildings radiating out from the center. The building they stood in served as receiving room and back office. The kitchens, laundry, gardeners’ and maintenance sheds, and servants’ quarters were at the rear of the complex. Strung along the rest of the perimeter were freestanding guest quarters of several rooms on one floor, although a few doubled their capacity with a second floor. Between buildings and caves lay open ground; little sketches of tents, tables, hoops, and sport-balls indicated that when clear of snow it hosted garden parties, lawn games, and children playing freely.

“What is your preference, Serenity: supper first, then a bath? Or the opposite?” Csevet asked. He spoke in the same manner in which he might have asked Maia whether he would prefer to hear a petitioner in the Tortoise Room, Rose Room, or Untheileian.

Maia, disregarding the heat gathering in his face and ears, replied, “Perhaps we could bathe while supper was prepared? Min Dichin, would you be able to show us to an appropriate bathing cave?”

Valto smiled suddenly. “Hithera did tell us on the hunt, Serenity, that you’re quite devoted to Cstheio Caireizhasan, just as he is. Would you care to take your bath in the Caireinazhaio?”

“The Cave of Stars?” Maia repeated. “Is it open to the air, then, Min Dichin?”

She waved her hand. “Oh, gods, no — there are a few such grottoes but we’d not recommend them in this weather. It’s completely enclosed and it’s quite beautiful. And peaceful. We’re not terribly observant ourself but, well, one does feel the Lady’s presence in that cave.”

“Why… yes,” Maia said. “We believe we would very much like to bathe in the Caireinazhaio.”

“We’d suggest someone bathe alongside you, Serenity,” Valto continued with a slight frown. “Bathers have been known to fall asleep in the heat and sink under the waters, and we’re all very tired tonight.”

“Either Cala Athmaza or we will be guarding His Serenity as he bathes,” Beshelar said.

“The Caireinazhaio is quite small, Lieutenant,” she explained. “And, well, full of water. We’d not recommend entering it clothed. There’s only one entry to it, in any case.”

Maia could nearly feel the steam rising off his face and ears now. Before he could speak, however, Csevet said in a businesslike voice, “We have bathed alongside His Serenity for the last few months, and we are strong enough that, had we to, we could carry him out of the Cave of Stars.”

Forcing his tongue to the same indifferent briskness, Maia replied, “We are agreeable to Mer Aisava’s suggestion.”

To his relief, Valto reacted only with a nod of approval. She then turned to Cala. “Maza, could you please train that light on the cabinet behind the desk? We should take some keys with us, that we needn’t walk all the way back here in the cold.” Cala obliged her, and she stepped behind the desk to pick out three or four keys, peering at the tags before pocketing them. Then they walked out the front door again, around to the rear of the building, and toward the center of Daiano.

Over the caves and their entrances had been built a gently pitched roof — high, broad, and low-eaved — supported on numerous thick posts carved as ornately as the receiving room furniture and heavily lacquered to preserve the carvings from the elements. While there were no walls to speak of, an open façade had been built around each cave entrance, further sheltering each long, broad set of steps leading down into the earth.

“At the foot of each stairway is a foyer with another map in it,” Valto said as the supply bundles were unpacked, repacked, and shuffled, leaving Maia and Csevet with one containing fresh clothes. “And all of the caves are very clearly marked with signs. However, we’d be happy to accompany you down if you like.”

“It should not be necessary, Min Dichin,” Maia said, “but we thank you.”

Valto nodded. “Then would you let us take the dach’osmichen from you, Serenity?”

Ino murmured in her sleep as she was transferred from Maia’s shoulders to Valto’s. Then Valto added, “As we said, the Caireinazhaio is a very small cave. Only two, maybe three bathers at most can fit within it.”

“Beshelar,” Cala said, “we suggest we accompany His Serenity and Mer Aisava down into the caves, as we have a reliable light source, and stand outside the Caireinazhaio.”

His counterpart gave a curt nod. “And we will stand outside the entrance to the baths. Min Dichin, Mer Rishonar, you may leave one of the heavy supply sacks with us for the moment, as you are quite encumbered for the moment. Have either of you a light, to guide your way to the kitchens?”

“Let us get that, Min Dichin; you’ve got the one dach’osmichen on your shoulders and the other by the hand.” Taris dug in his own pockets for flint and steel. There was the hiss of ignition, then a flare of additional light. “So … to the kitchens?”

“Follow us, Mer Rishonar,” Valto said, turning again. Mireän shuffled sleepily along as Valto tugged her. “Thou as well, Hithera.”

“We believe we could be of assistance to you therein,” Taris said in the formal.

“I can help too,” Hithera offered.

“If you wish, though we’re quite capable of lifting pots and sacks ourself…” Then their voices petered out as they, and Taris’s flame, were swallowed up in the night.

The stone of the steps down into the caves appeared to have been either created out of rough stone or surfaced with it, to maximize friction and minimize falls. There were no railings, only recesses cut into the surrounding walls that reminded Maia of Talorathee’s root cellar.

“At least, Serenity, you will not have to crouch,” Csevet said drily.

“You have read our mind,” Maia said in much the same tone.

“Mer Aisava, would you please descend the stairs behind His Serenity? We’ll precede you both, to light the way and in case we must catch him,” Cala said.

“Certainly, maza.”

Maia counted a good eighty steps before they set foot in the foyer. With each step, the air grew warmer and more humid, and there was the same mineral tang in the air that he recalled from Rishonee. By the time they reached the foyer he and Csevet had undone all the fastenings of their cloaks.

“Here’s the map,” said Cala, who had not adjusted his cloak at all. He trained the lightball upon a waist-high table topped with glass to protect the paper beneath from humidity. The three of them peered at it for a moment, taking in the plethora of fanciful names with which the various caves had been endowed. Finally, Cala shifted the lightball to his left hand so he could trail a bony finger over the glass. “There. The Cave of Stars. Follow us, please.”

They proceeded down a long, winding corridor that seemed more a tunnel, with its rounded walls and ceiling. Condensation dripped copiously from its pebbled stone, which was a mellow shade of gold with the occasional pink striation. Other corridors led off it, with heavily waterproofed wooden signs announcing that they led to the Lair of the Corat’ Arhos, the Antechamber of Ulis, the Harbor of Ashevezhkho, the Waters of Csaivo — and, at the sight of that last sign, bile rose in Maia’s throat.

_Let it go. She is more than ten years gone now, only bones in her crypt, and thy father rotting in his own. Thine anger will not bring her back, nor bring her any justice of him. Seek not to bathe in thy choler but in the light of the Lady._

_Let it go._

Maia released a long, long breath. Csevet flicked a glance at him but said nothing; if Cala had heard, as he must have, he did not acknowledge it.

Before the corridor’s end, Maia and Csevet had stuffed their hats, gloves, and face protectors into the pockets of their cloaks and slung said cloaks over their shoulders. Cala loosened his topmost cloak fastening as they drew up to a sign proclaiming that the corridor branching off to the left would lead them to the Cave of Stars.

The secondary corridor ended not in any sort of proper doorway but in a small, rounded antechamber of sorts. In it stood only a trunk and a cart, the wood of both lacquered as heavily as the signs. One lonely wet towel lay limply in the bottom of the cart. Csevet lifted the trunk lid to reveal a stack of clean ones, made of what looked like thick, luxurious Barizheise cotton.

Then he regarded the narrow passage ahead of them, which at its highest could not have been more than five feet. The plink and gurgle of flowing water echoed from it. Reading Maia’s thoughts again, Csevet said, “Perhaps our earlier words were premature.” Maia gave a soft snort.

“Can you both manage?” Cala asked.

“Both of us have managed much worse in the last several weeks,” Maia said, notes of both resignation and amusement in his voice.

“How much light we will have, however, is another story,” Csevet said, pursing his lips. “We do not know if the bathing chambers are normally lit by candle or gaslight. If the former, any matches we might find could be quite damp; if the latter, the management would have shut the gasjets off before closing Daiano down.”

“That’s easily dealt with,” Cala said. He whispered a few words in the same odd dialect of Ethuverazhin, and the lightball floated off his palms into the air. “It will precede you into the bathing chamber.”

“And how will you see, Cala?” Maia exclaimed.

“We can summon a second lightball in an instant an we must, Serenity.” And Cala then pointedly turned his back.

Maia and Csevet stripped out of boots and clothes without preamble, setting the latter on the floor beside their bundle and laying the former over the sides of the cart. Maia’s cloak gave one dull thump against the lacquered wood, thanks to the weight of the icon in its right pocket. The pebbly stone of the cavern floor was damp under Maia’s bare soles and surprisingly warm.

“Are you both ready?” Cala asked, his back still to them.

“We are,” Maia said.

The lightball began to drift into the passage. So close to its confines, it turned the inner stone to shades of sunset, picking out a glint of something brighter here and there.

“Follow us, Serenity,” Csevet said, hunching over considerably to fit himself into the passage. 

Maia was forced to drop to his knees within it and crawl after Csevet. Though he knew Cala’s back would remain turned until the two of them were out of sight, his face and ears heated with blood. His nohecharei had never seen him without, at least, his nightshirt on. Dozens of men had seen him naked by now in a variety of baths… but, to them, he had been just another bather. And he had been on his feet each time, or seated on a bench. His edocharei had seen rather more of him, but, again, not on his knees, like … like …

He bit his lip hard to dispel the sudden image of an alleyway in Chezhvaho and what seemed a completely moonwitted case of the vapors. He fixed his eyes straight ahead of him — on his secretary’s very naked and very shapely bottom, flexing as Csevet inched his way forward, nowhere near sufficiently obscured by how the lightball threw Csevet into silhouette. His face and ears burning even hotter, Maia let his gaze fall to the bumpy stone under his palms and knees. 

Mercifully, they had not very far to go. After about twelve feet, he noticed that the sounds of flowing water were much louder now, and the quality of light had changed. Csevet was no longer closely following the lightball but standing on the edge of the exit, his body angled so that his head was elevated outside the confines of the passage, looking at what was before him.

“Have we reached the Caireinazhaio?” Maia asked in the plural.

For a moment, Csevet did not answer him. Then, in a surprisingly hushed voice with an echo behind it, he said, “We have, Serenity.” He crouched again, and his slender form slipped from Maia’s view, a gentle splash following. Maia blinked in the sudden bright and glittering light, crawled all the way forward — and gaped.

The Cave of Stars, as Valto had said, was not wide. But its ceiling was at least thirty feet high. From the pointed peak beneath which the lightball hovered to the shallow bathing grotto near the bottom, it gleamed and glowed and glinted. Long rods of crystal — ice white, soft pink, pale aquamarine, and clear as the purest water — sprouted from the ceiling, then branched out to run down the walls in rivulets like the drippings of multicolored candles. Every other square inch of wall and ceiling sparkled with what seemed to Maia like hundreds of thousands of tiny stars, mostly silver in hue but speckled here and there with other colors.

“Merciful goddesses,” he breathed. “Min Dichin spoke in sooth.”

“Indeed,” came Csevet’s voice from beneath him, as reverent as before. He stood waist deep in the burbling stream that cut across the grotto floor, his mid-chest roughly level with the floor of the passage from which they had just emerged. His head was tilted back, his eyes were wide, and his ears were as high as Maia thought he had ever seen them.

Suddenly Csevet seemed to recall that he waited upon his emperor, for an abashed look darted across his features and his ears dipped to their normal position. “Do you need any help, Serenity?”

“Oh — oh, no, thank you. We — we think we shall be fine.” And, indeed, it was not difficult for Maia to slide his legs over the lip of the exit, then gently drop down feet first onto the submerged bench in the grotto below.

He stood there a moment, the water rushing hot about his calves, just to continue to gaze upon the Caireinazhaio. Carved into the wall of the bathing grotto itself well above water level was a recessed shelf, crowded with vials of bathing oil, bottles of hair and skin tonics, bars of soap, sea sponges, and various other accoutrements. There were gasjets set high into the walls between the crystal rivulets, but they were as dark and silent as Csevet had predicted.

Maia’s education had included almost nothing of the natural world; Setheris considered it a topic beneath the notice of a gentleman, unless that gentleman were keen on the hunt. But as a boy Maia had played in the gardens of Isvaroë and later, with far less supervision, around the Edonara. The tiny stars set into the walls of the Caireinazhaio seemed not much different from those of small common rocks, sleek and glinting after rain, and the crystals reminded him of a half-stone he’d once found, rather like that of the icon Csevet had given him.

These mundane observations did not diminish the beauty all around him in the least. Nor did they chase away the presence of the Bright Lady. Maia breathed deeply of the hot, moist, iron-scented air.

Whose child was he? The star’s child, returned to her womb, if only for a brief, blessed hour.

Taking care with his footing on the bench, he eased himself down upon it. The water folded itself around him to the height of his breast, as buoyant and as silky as he recalled from the very first bath he had taken with Csevet. Rishonee seemed so long ago now, almost another life, no less so than the Untheileneise Court. Or Edonomee. The heat tendriled into his muscles, stretched and strained from so many weeks of shoveling, carrying, endless walking. He tilted his head back against the grotto wall, closing his eyes, and bit his lip to suppress a groan that, he sensed, would sound far less innocent than it actually was.

“Serenity…”

There was a strange diffidence to Csevet’s voice. Maia opened his eyes again. Csevet was flushed pink from the tips of his ears to where the water rose about him. Undoubtedly from the heat, Maia thought. He purposefully did not speculate upon whether Csevet was flushed pink beneath the water’s surface as well.

“Yes, Csevet?”

Csevet took a deep breath, then asked quietly, “Now that you have an entourage once more, and the two of us are in a bathing chamber fit for a zhas … we would feel it remiss to not offer our help as an edocharis, tonight.”

The thought struck Maia like a thunderbolt: _He is not flushed from the heat … not entirely._

He swallowed; as hot and humid as the Caireinazhaio was, his throat was suddenly parched. Desire, denied and demurred and thought unrequited and set aside a hundred times, was a palpable thing before him now. With a mouth to be kissed, a skin to be stroked.

Equally palpable was the knowledge of his own power. He no longer sat the throne, but he was Ethuverazhid Zhas by right of blood, still attended by his First Nohecharei. And by Csevet, who had killed for him and who would deny him nothing. Csevet, who might die in his defense… or, should Maia prevail and Csevet live, be necessarily cast aside for the future zhasan. Or, worse, discovered to be Maia’s marnis lover, and driven from court in disgrace. At the very least.

And then came the second thought: _He has taken far greater risks for thee already, and he was no sheltered child when you met. Take thy pleasure while thou canst, with thy most loyal of men, with only another man sworn unto thee as witness. An regain’st thy throne, may’st never have another chance… and an dost not regain thy throne, shalt be dead._

“We … would appreciate that very much, Csevet.”

Csevet’s eyes widened, as if he had been expecting Maia to decline. The tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips. It was, Maia thought, very, very pink.

Then he waded forward, the water parting around his waist, until he stood directly before Maia. He rose on tiptoe to retrieve a bar of soap from the shelf. Maia’s eyes followed the stretch of his arm, with its light rope of musculature; across to the flat plain of his breast, with its tiny nipples that stood out despite the heat of the cavern; down to the faint ridges of his belly, framed within the diagonal lines that sloped down and inward from his hips…

“Sandalwood and verashme,” Csevet was saying.

Maia blinked and bit back his apology. An emperor did not apologize. “Please repeat that for us?”

“This soap,” Csevet said, the bar in his hand. “Do those scents please Your Serenity? They are rather more …” His coloring seemed to darken. “…masculine, we think, than those which your edocharei seem to favor for you.”

“We are not averse to them,” Maia said, marveling at how level his voice sounded.

“Very good, Serenity. Might we start by washing your hair?”

“Please,” Maia replied quietly.

There was a cup in the niche as well. Csevet set the soap aside to fill the cup with water, then poised it over Maia’s head. When Maia nodded, Csevet tilted it gently. Hot and satiny the water flowed over his head, the heat sinking deep into his scalp, and he found himself unable to suppress a soft, soft hum of sensual pleasure. He heard a quiet catch of breath, and the sound sent heat as hot and satiny as the water itself pulsing downward through his belly.

Csevet took up the soap again and made a thick lather of it between his palms. The aromas of verashme and sandalwood filled the wet air about them, deep and strong, prickling in Maia’s nostrils. It was very unlike most perfumes he had smelled at court, and it seemed to call to something deep in his blood.

He made another soft noise of appreciation as Csevet began to soap his hair. He remembered Csevet standing behind him with the shears, smoothing out each curl between his fingers before cropping it nearly to Maia’s skull. An intimate touch, but as nothing compared with Csevet’s fingers twining deep into his hair, pushing against his scalp, working the soap into what felt like every individual root. Wet as his hair was, every touch seemed to strike a spark, and every spark jetted through Maia’s body to settle in his loins.

“Your hair would be more thoroughly rinsed, Serenity,” Csevet said very softly, “an you immersed it in the water, rather than relying on the cup. Perhaps slide forward a bit, that you could put your head back?”

Maia obeyed, sighing as the water embraced all of him save his face. Csevet worked as diligently as before, loosing every trace of soap from Maia’s hair to let it flow out of the Caireinazhaio, before murmuring, “A second wash, Serenity?”

“Please, Csevet,” Maia whispered.

The second rinse was an even greater torment than the first. Though his cock remained untouched, it was as hard beneath the water’s surface as any of the crystals high above. He bit deeply into the insides of his cheeks, near to drawing blood, to not moan at the touch of Csevet’s fingers upon his scalp.

When he sat up straight again, Csevet’s face was possibly the darkest shade of red Maia had ever seen it.

“Would you like your ears washed as well, Serenity?” he asked quietly. Maia’s stomach turned over with a painfully delicious flutter. He could not speak, only nod. Watching Csevet work up a fresh lather of the soap, he wondered, briefly, if he would spend the second Csevet’s fingers touched the inner surface of his ear.

He did not, but it was far too close a thing.

“…Serenity?”

Csevet had frozen at his side from the moment Maia had shuddered and the soft cry had left his lips. Maia could hear the quickness of his breath, and he knew if he looked down through the water he would see Csevet’s cock straining up through it as fiercely as his own.

He forced his eyes to Csevet’s instead. They seemed more black than grey now. Wetting his lips, Maia said hoarsely and desperately, “We fear we will … disgrace ourself before you, Csevet, before you are done washing us.”

Csevet’s throat worked briefly, and his eyes seemed even darker than before. Then he sat on the bench beside Maia — side to side, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and every nerve in Maia’s skin that touched Csevet’s skin was unbearably alight.

“We can relieve your tension, an you wish,” Csevet murmured. His nearer hand reached down into the water, into Maia’s lap.

 _“No,”_ Maia said vehemently, pulling back as his heart jumped and a jolt of alarm flared sharp and cold within the heat of his excitement.

Csevet drew back minutely, and Maia could have slapped himself for the stunned look of hurt on his secretary’s face. “No,” he said again, more levelly, gripping Csevet’s hand tightly in his. “Csevet — I do not wish for thee to ‘relieve my tension,’ as if wert nothing more to me than — than what pretended’st at in that alley in Chezhvaho. I want thy heart in this. Dost understand?”

The hurt faded from Csevet’s expression, leaving behind one that Maia could not sort out entirely. Hope, fear, deliberation, all mixed together. Quietly he said, “Know’st we might never have this again, Maia? Whether or not we live?”

“Oh, I know,” Maia said, startled at the bitterness in the words. “And that’s all the more reason. An one of us live and the other die, should he regret all his life that we did not?”

Csevet’s smile was a slow, sweet thing. “Soothly, they will someday call thee Edrehasivar the Wise.” And of a sudden he was kneeling astride Maia and their mouths were pressed together.

It took perhaps three full kisses before the sensation changed from _wet and slippery and very strange_ to _wet and hot and, oh, merciful goddesses._ Maia suspected he should be grateful that the awkward misunderstanding of a moment before had blunted the edge of his arousal, for he could think of no other reason that the indolent brush of Csevet’s cockstand against his own beneath the water had not caused him to spend. Then Csevet murmured against his ear, “We’ve not much time to waste, so ... wouldst like to have me?”

This time it was only Maia’s grip around the base of his own cock that kept him from finishing on the spot. When he could speak again, he said brokenly, “Yes. Oh, yes, Csevet.”

Csevet reached up to the shelf again, this time for a vial of oil. When he removed the cork, the sweet scent of almond filled the air, melding with those of verashme and sandalwood. Maia’s nostrils twitched again. Csevet reached for Maia’s right hand and began to oil his middle finger.

Maia, confused and lust-addled, blinked at him. “What art doing, Csevet?”

“Preparing thee to prepare me. I think wilt enjoy that as much as I will.”

Csevet set the oil back onto the shelf, then with his right hand clutched at the shelf’s bottom edge for support. With his left he grasped Maia’s right wrist, drew his hand beneath the water, and guided the tip of the oiled finger between his legs, behind his stones. Maia felt it brush against warm, wrinkled flesh that twitched at the touch, and he groaned again, his ears as erect and quivering as his cock.

“Hold thy finger up straight,” Csevet whispered, his voice catching, “and I’ll sink down upon it.”

Barely able to breathe, Maia watched him do so. Csevet’s insides not only compressed about his finger but contracted around it, hot and silken and, like Csevet himself, surprisingly strong. Csevet’s eyes were closed, his head tilted slightly back, his ears twitching, and his lips slightly parted. He rose up again, unsheathing Maia’s finger. Even beneath the water, the bared flesh of that finger felt peculiarly tepid now.

“Didst feel the little spot of nerves inside me?” Csevet breathed.

“I … don’t think so?” Maia croaked. Csevet had felt completely sleek and smooth inside.

“Thou just barely brushed’st it. Let me take thy finger again; when it’s in me two-thirds of the way, crook the tip forward gently and press. It feels something like the tip of a nose.”

Maia nodded, then watched Csevet descend again, his abdominal muscles shaking, the hollow of his throat quivering. Csevet paused before Maia’s finger was completely buried in him, then fixed his gaze with his darkened eyes. “Now.”

Maia, moving with painstaking slowness for fear of hurting Csevet, curled the first joint of the enveloped finger forward and probed. He felt something firm, but with give to it — and then felt a jolt go through Csevet’s entire body. Csevet bared his teeth and exhaled through them.

“That is … good? I don’t hurt thee?” Maia asked anxiously.

“Oh, it’s very good indeed,” Csevet gasped, his eyes barely open. “Wouldst give me a second finger?”

Maia leaned forward and reached for the vial with his left hand, fumbling with it until, with a soft huff of amusement, Csevet helped him lubricate his next-longest finger. “Withdraw the one, then push both into me, all the way now,” Csevet said, his voice trembling. Maia, who felt as if another lightball burned in his belly, obeyed.

He watched like a deer stunned by torchlight as Csevet, still holding Maia’s hand close to his body, undulated against his knuckles, contracted around his fingers, raised and lowered himself so that he could brush the little protrusion of nerves against Maia’s questing fingertips. Beneath the water’s surface, Maia could see the muscles of his thighs rippling with both pleasure and the strain of keeping himself upright, and the ripples echoed upward through the thews of his belly and breast. Csevet’s erect ears bobbed in tandem with his cock, and Maia thought he could perceive a strand of early seed issuing from it to float upon the water.

Months ago, Maia had thought he would never see anything more beautiful in his life than the sun rising over the turrets and the mooring spire of the Untheileneise Court. Minutes ago, he had been certain that the sunrise had ceded its place to the Caireinazhaio. Now, he wondered if the sight of Csevet fucking himself on Maia’s hand might be more beautiful than cavern and sunrise together.

Csevet’s eyes came open, though they remained heavily lidded. “I … don’t want to spend on thy fingers,” he said with difficulty. “Let me spend with thee inside me, Maia.”

Maia’s mouth fell open with an incoherent sound, and his eyes screwed shut. He forced the former to close and the latter to open, and then he said, “I’ll … not last very long. I’ve never…”

“It’s all right, just —” For the first time since Maia had met him, words seemed to have failed Csevet. He blew his breath out in frustration, then pushed at Maia’s wrist. Maia, understanding, withdrew his fingers. Csevet moved forward on his knees until he straddled the head of Maia’s cock. For a third time, Maia was forced to summon every ounce of willpower he possessed not to climax then and there as Csevet’s slender, delicate fingers encircled the head and guided it to his own hole.

“Oh, gods,” Maia choked. If Csevet had felt hot around Maia’s fingers, he was positively fiery around his cock. Every internal muscle seemed to be ruthlessly working at Maia, squeezing and caressing him between swathes of oiled satin, forcing him to a peak he desperately wished to delay until Csevet had attained his own. He found his entire body stiffening, his fingernails grinding into the rock beneath him to the point of splitting, as Csevet rose and fell upon him with his wet hair, now grown down to his shoulders, falling across his face like a shimmering curtain.

Csevet was moaning softly, his pitch rising with a desperate, abandoned note to it, the muscles of his chest trembling even harder as, Maia realized, he tried to form words. “….’ve wanted this… so long… since Edonomee… art so beautiful…” His words trailed off into incoherence.

Maia opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment his stones began to tighten, his cock to spasm, and then his entire body to shake, and all he could utter was a tremulous _“Oh.”_ Csevet moaned in response, managed to get out a _“Yes,”_ as Maia felt the first wave of seed arcing out of him into Csevet’s body. He leaned forward and grabbed Csevet by the hips, couldn’t not do so, nor could he keep his own hips from slamming upward against the center of Csevet’s body until he was drained utterly dry and it took a heroic effort not to collapse on the bench and sink entirely beneath the water.

“Oh, Salezheio, _yes,_ Maia….”

Before Maia could see clearly again, he felt Csevet once more grab his hand, and this time he closed Maia’s fingers tightly around his own cock. Maia, biting his lower lip to bear the contractions around his softening and overly sensitive flesh, pulled hard and fast until Csevet made a high-pitched sound and hot, sticky seed jetted over Maia’s wrist.

All the tension drained from Csevet immediately. He fell partway forward, gripping Maia’s shoulders for support. He was still breathing heavily, and his insides twitched around Maia.

Maia reached up for his wrists. “Wait, let me loose thee,” Csevet all but croaked, shifting his hips. Then he let himself be tugged down into Maia’s lap and arms, tucking his head into the crook of Maia’s neck. He was warm and sweat-slicked and solid-muscled under his soft skin, and he smelled of clean sweat and seed and scented oil and scented soap and the iron tang of the spring. Real.

Time flowed like the waters of the spring beneath the cave, warm and easy, like being inside the mantra to the Lady of the Stars. It was too much effort to speak, to move, but Maia saw no reason to do either; his hand idly stroking Csevet’s hair, and Csevet’s twining in his own, more than sufficed for communication. It was with regret that, when Csevet finally raised his head and said, “We should finish cleansing ourselves; the others will be waiting for us,” Maia was compelled to agree.

Each attended briskly to his own ablutions, that they not waste more time. The spring carried seed and sweat and grime away into Osreian’s depths. But Maia could not help stealing glances at Csevet as they washed, glances that Csevet would catch and return with a somewhat dazed smile, as if he could not believe what they had just done. Maia, too, could feel Csevet’s eyes on his own body, and he felt as though he would never stop smiling.

“Art ready?” Csevet murmured at last, taking Maia’s face in his hands one last time. Sorrow welled up in Maia: it could, it very well might, be the last time their lips ever touched. Recalling his own words to Csevet earlier, he returned the kiss with a ferocity that set his cock twitching afresh. Csevet, as he drew back, looked as newly lust-struck as Maia felt, but he offered only a sweet, sad smile before turning to hoist himself back up into the passage.

No sooner had he done so than the lightball drifted down from the ceiling. Maia let it interpolate itself between himself and Csevet, then crawled after it back to the antechamber.

Cala’s back was turned once again. He said nothing as Maia and Csevet emerged from the passage, dripping onto the antechamber floor. _Well, didst expect him to ask if it were a good fuck, hobgoblin?_ Maia’s mouth quirked as Csevet pulled two towels from the trunk and passed him one. They dried off in silence, dressed in fresh clothing, and stuffed their worn garments into the sack.

“We are decent again, Cala,” Maia said in the plural.

“Serenity.” Cala turned around to face them. Maia could not perceive any reaction behind his spectacles, whether a mischievous glint or a gaze of reproach.

As they retraced their steps, then ascended the stairs, the air once more grew cold and dry, but neither Maia nor Csevet moved to redon their winter kit until they had set foot on solid ground again. Cala had redone the topmost fastening of his cloak before they were halfway up the stairs.

“Serenity.” The planes of Beshelar’s face were harsh in the illumination of the lightball, and for a moment Maia wondered if Beshelar knew what had happened in the Caireinazhaio.

“Did you see or hear anything of note while we were all underground, Beshelar?” Cala asked.

Beshelar hoisted the supply sack over his shoulder. “No, nothing, unless one counts the owl we saw pass over us half an hour ago.”

They walked to the kitchens at the very rear of the resort. The air was as warm as that of the caves, if somewhat drier. On it floated the smell of stew, rich with beef, salt, and green herbs, as well as the aroma of black tea.

The building was divided between the working area itself, which was dominated by a massive iron stove, and a room full of plain benches around equally plain long tables that reminded Maia of the kitchens at Parugo. At one table sat the children and Taris, to whom Valto was serving bowls of stew along with roasted potatoes. From Hithera’s ecstatic expression, beef was something he had never tasted before and the flavor quite agreed with him. His brother tried to look less impressed, with middling success. Ino and Mireän ate theirs without any fuss whatsoever. Maia reflected that, plain as the stew was, it was more akin to their accustomed fare than what they had eaten at the Dichada farmstead, and perhaps it was a dispiriting hint that their adventures would soon be over.

Valto set a bowl down to execute a half-bow. “Serenity, Csevet, you both look rather refreshed.” Nothing in her tone or voice seemed amiss, but Maia thought he could perceive a stiffness to Beshelar’s jaw — and, now, a knowing glint in Cala’s eyes.

Forcing himself not to blush and drop his gaze, reminding himself that his nohecharei served at his pleasure and not the other way around, he replied firmly, “We are, Min Dichin; many thanks. We see you have found us supper.”

“Yes, Serenity. There’s a root cellar and also an ice cellar beneath this building. The stew was already prepared and frozen; it took a while to boil, but that gave us time to roast the potatoes alongside it. There was cream in the ice cellar, too, and tea and sugar in the pantry.”

Cala dined with them while Beshelar guarded them, and then they switched off; Cala was as relaxed as the rest of them as he ate, and when it was Beshelar’s turn to eat he remained formal but seemed rather less stiff of mien than was his wont. Despite Taris’s warning hand on his shoulder, Hithera took their off-duty stances as permission to pelt them with questions about magic and war. Each nohecharis alternated bites and sips with polite replies that whetted the boy’s curiosity without delving into forbidden knowledge or inappropriate topics. As Hithera exhausted his store of questions for Beshelar, Taris hesitantly asked the lieutenant if he had any familiarity with archery equipment, which launched a rather enthusiastic if highly technical discussion between the two of them plus Valto on various sorts of weaponry.

Despite the formality that was no longer dispensable, Maia found the supper a relaxing affair. His nieces were warming to him more. Hithera seemed highly taken with Mireän, who seemed to find him amusing and interesting. Taris gently deflected Ino’s questions about ogres by telling her other details of mountain life, to which Mireän, Valto, and whichever nohecharis was supping at the moment also listened intently. Valto and Taris compared notes on mountain versus badlands hunting, with Beshelar throwing in at intervals. Csevet, like Maia, mostly watched and listened, and Maia thought he seemed rather charmed by it all.

At last, when all the dishes and utensils sat soaking in a tub of suds and hot water, Valto stifled a yawn. “We should all settle in for the night. Lion House is the biggest and most luxurious guest quarters, which should go to His Serenity. Hard by are Suncat and Tangrisha Houses; we’ll take the girls to one, and Csevet and the Rishonadeise lads can sleep in the other. In the morning we can all meet in the kitchens again. Meanwhile, Serenity, Mer Aisava, leave your worn clothes here, and we can make use of the laundry in the morning.”

To Maia’s surprise, the guest quarters looked rather like small rustic cottages, their walls limewashed and their roofs made of thatch. All of them stood quite close together, separated by perhaps ten or fifteen feet in each direction. “Nobles pay to sleep in these buildings?” he asked skeptically.

“Oh, yes, Serenity,” Valto said wryly. “They’re rather more solidly constructed than the average cotter’s tumbledown, and _considerably_ more luxurious within. The semblance of rusticity, without the inconveniences, quite appeals to many wealthy folk.”

“Min Dichin speaks soothly,” Csevet said, his tone just as dry as hers.

Lion House was one of the resort’s two-story affairs. The interior was all plain white walls whose gaslights were shaded with clear glass, stained but unpolished wooden floorboards, pine furniture built along simple lines, and a plain blue twill for upholstery with shutters painted to match The main floor was mostly taken up by a parlor, though there were also a few other very small rooms plus a tiny lavatory. There was no kitchen, as of course guests would not prepare their own meals, but a kettle hung over the parlor hearth, and the smallest room that was not the lavatory contained jugs of water, a sink, accoutrements for tea-making, and a now-empty ice casket for bottles of wine or spirits. Other than the thin layer of dust over almost everything, Lion House seemed clean enough and quite snug. Maia supposed that if the Drazhada had once happily retreated to Edonomee, which had likely been rather austere even in its heyday, he could see the nobility enjoying these surrounds just as well.

“Beshelar, would you mind taking the night’s first shift watching His Serenity?” Cala asked as he knelt by the hearth to kindle a fire. “We’ve cast maz after maz, and we feel a touch depleted. We’d be more effective after several hours’ rest on that sofa over there.”

Beshelar nodded. “Of course, maza. Serenity, do you need anything else of us?”

Maia flushed. He suspected his First Nohecharei felt the lack of his edocharei more than he himself did, but he could not imagine either of them tending to him as Nemer, Avris, and Esha had. “No, thank you, Lieutenant. We can tend to ourself for the night.”

The upper floor consisted of a master bedchamber, two smaller ones, and another minuscule lavatory. In the master bedchamber, Beshelar busied himself with lighting the hearth. His turned back afforded Maia the chance to undress unwatched. He felt awkward, laying his fresh clothes out on the dresser; he realized he had no idea what his edocharei had done with his clothes after changing him out of them. Then he thought, _Would this were my greatest challenge,_ and he smiled ruefully.

The bed was not as large as his own — his former own — in the Alcethmeret, but it was large enough. Gauzy white curtains were strung between the substantial pine bedposts. Behind them, Maia discovered, the mattress was a heavily stuffed featherbed, the pillows equally full, the sheets a soft cotton, the covers of thick blue wool. The curtains had kept the bed itself mostly free of dust.

“Are you settled in, Serenity?” Beshelar asked.

“We are, Lieutenant, thank you.”

The gaslights went out, leaving only the flames in the hearth glowing through the curtains. “Good night, Serenity.”

“Good night to you as well,” Maia said with a yawn.

But he could not fall straight to sleep, despite his fatigue, despite the comfort of his surroundings, despite the sweetness that still hung about him from his interlude with Csevet —

— ah. That was what, or whom, was missing. And especially after having awakened the morning before last to find Csevet’s head pressed against his own chest.

Maia laughed silently, so as not to alarm Beshelar. Would he, and Csevet, ever be so fortunate as to have such a moment between themselves again? A marneise liaison between emperor and secretary would be a most scandalous thing, offensive to men and gods alike. He could not imagine how such a thing could be kept a secret in the Untheileneise Court, where he was never alone and where rumor churned as ceaselessly as an automaton. He could not imagine it would make Dach’osmin Ceredin, or any other young noblewoman, more eager for his hand. And he could _very_ well imagine it fueling yet another attempted coup, once again threatening what little stability remained in the Ethuveraz.

And that was all in the event that he regained the throne. Which was, at the moment, far from a surety. What sorts of intimate moments could he and Csevet possibly have, traveling with the First Nohecharei, three children, Taris and Valto, and whoever else might join his train? And, once they drew close enough to Cetho for the shadow of Eshevis Tethimar to fall over them…

He sighed softly, then rolled over upon the exceedingly comfortable mattress. He could not afford, he thought, to waste a night’s rest on longing. _Thou canst be emperor, or thou canst be dead — and, now, so can thy companions._ He managed, after resolutely pushing thoughts of Csevet out of his mind, to drift off into sleep.

He dreamed of himself and Csevet, curled up together in the grass of a Celvazheise mountain meadow in high summer, flowers all about them as bright as the Lady’s stars, their scent and that of Csevet’s fresh-washed, waist-length, unbound hair in his nostrils. _I shall never leave thee,_ dream-Csevet murmured, and in the dream Maia’s arms wound about him more tightly.

When he opened his eyes to brilliant sunlight, he believed himself still in the meadow. He sat up and blinked, and blinked again. The curtains about his bed glowed softly with the brightness of the morning sun upon the snow outside the window. Cala, he thought, must have opened the shutters to let the sun warm the room.

“Serenity?”

“Good morning, Cala.” Maia yawned. “What’s the clock?”

“Half past eight, Serenity. The others wished to wash. Min Dichin was adamant we replenish our supplies, as much as we can all carry, before we leave Daiano later today.” He switched to the formal: “We and Beshelar thought it best to let you sleep as late as you desired.”

“That was kind of you both,” Maia said. He pushed the bedcurtain aside. Cala gave him a bow, then turned his back, and Maia quietly redressed. With the sun flooding the bedchamber, he could appreciate much better the charm afforded by the relative simplicity of the décor.

As he and Cala descended the stairs, he could hear the rustle of fabric in the parlor. They had not quite reached the bottom step when Beshelar was before them, impeccably dressed as usual, executing a deep bow. “Serenity.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant. Shall we all repair to the kitchens?”

Breakfast was even less formal than supper had been. As soon as Maia and the nohecharei arrived, Valto served them, then set off with the girls for the baths. The Rishonadeisei, who had already eaten, reappeared in the kitchen shortly afterward, removing their hats to let the air dry their bath-dampened hair. Maia felt a sweet tug in his belly at the sight of Csevet, and he could not repress a warm smile that Csevet returned. If the others thought it unusual, they did not show it.

After he and Beshelar had eaten, Cala had cast a washing maz over the two of them, that they would not need to leave Maia’s side. When all nine of them were reunited in the kitchen he did the same for their worn clothes. Then he said, “Serenity, we and Beshelar think it best that we all head to Ezho.”

“Would that not be dangerous?” Maia asked uneasily.

“It’s not without its risks, Serenity, but a disguising maz will mitigate them considerably, and we can blend in with other travelers. Also, we’ll need to restock our supplies once again. We can’t build fires in the open, which means it would be a waste of time for Mer Rishonar and Min Dichin to hunt.”

“Not to mention, Serenity,” Csevet added, “we’re badly in need of news from Cetho and elsewhere. An we were all to take a meal in a tavern, we” — referring to himself — “could mingle with couriers, perhaps buy one a drink with the archduchess’s money, and learn what’s toward. With that news, we could make our subsequent plans.”

Their last few hours at Daiano were spent restocking their supplies. When Valto returned with the girls, she enlisted Taris and Csevet to help her mine the root and ice cellars for foodstuffs the least likely to spoil: dried apples and pears, hard-boiled eggs, strips of smoked meat, savory biscuits, stale bread with thick hard crusts, chunks of cheese, and jars of preserved greens. She also raided the laundry for pillows and a few more blankets, as the next few nights would likely be spent sleeping in the open. And, along with the bedlinens, she produced a small, wagon-like cart with a buttoned canvas cover and a towing handle. “Easier than carrying all the supplies, or the dach’osmichen if they’re sleepy. We’ve still the last peaks of the badlands to traverse, which will hinder the wheels a bit, but once we’re past them we’ll be glad we took it.”

***

The southernmost peaks of the badlands were, without question, a challenge. A bird or an airship could have flown the thirty miles between Daiano and Ezho in a straight line, but two-legged beings and wheeled conveyances did not have that advantage, especially not those trying to avoid settlements for fear of soldiers. As Valto’s previous travels to Ezho had been from the Dichada farmstead and back along the Istandaärtha, she did not know this terrain as well. Pulling the little girls when they tired along in the cart up and down inclines was an effortsome task the adults had to switch amongst themselves frequently. As if all this were not enough, snow fell intermittently upon them. Without girls or cart it might have taken three entire days, perhaps less. For all nine of them it took the better part of five.

Still, the peaks were not as high here as they had been between Chezhvaho and the Dichada farmstead, nor the wind as bitter. Maia spent the nights nestled on the ground amid twice as many warm bodies and much cleaner bedlinens, the cart turned sideways at their heads to provide a small windblock, as Cala and Beshelar exchanged watch and Taris, bow in hand, rose a few hours early to give the nohecharei that much more sleep. Csevet’s body, warm and wiry, was always immediately against Maia’s, his maz-clean hair sweet in Maia’s nostrils, and Maia awoke each morning feeling more refreshed than he had upon awakening in Lion House.

Toward the end of the third day, he noticed that the landscape had begun to change subtly: the ground beneath their feet seemed flatter, less stony, and here and there were trees. By mid-morning on the fourth day they could see a forest on the horizon, one that was not completely made up of evergreens, and the fourth night was spent therein. They slept in a great hollow beneath a pair of storm-uprooted trees, and though the earth that cupped them was frozen solid, the depression of it formed a far more effective windbreak than had the cart.

Beyond the forest were fields, plowed over for winter and covered in snow, and many small patches of woods. And, on the horizon in early afternoon on the fifth day, the outskirts of Ezho.


	11. Ezho

Maia had known Ezho was a young city, founded at the peak of the gold rush during his grandfather’s reign. A city of men trying to get rich, or richer, and the businessfolk who catered to them and the workers who served them; no one of gentle birth to be found save the younger sons of the patch-pocket nobility, choosing trade or even labor over destitution. Still, he was startled by how utilitarian the architecture in the high street was: plain rectangles of brick and concrete, no ornamental flourishes whatsoever, with a few small buildings that resembled Daiano cottages minus their charm. Even the othasmeire was a basic brick affair, marked out only by a rough stone plaque bearing the iconography of all the gods.

The high street seemed to be compensating for its lack of character with the throngs of people who choked it. But not a one of them looked pleased to be there. Their garments ran the gamut from well-made but having seen better days to outright rags, and their faces, ears, and stances were uniformly tense. A goodly number sat on the pavement with their backs to the walls of buildings, cups set down beside them and seldom a coin ringing into them. Maia remembered the longshoreman in Chezhvaho, speaking of Aveio: _Full of refugees from the east, and not enough jobs or charity to feed them all._ How many more must have stopped here in Ezho? He wished he could spare a coin for each of the beggars, but he suspected that what remained of Vedero’s purse wouldn’t go even a fraction that far.

Instead he turned to Cala and Beshelar and asked quietly, “Where shall we spend the night? The cellar you described to us is probably not the wisest choice.”

Beshelar snorted. “And likely now full as well, Serenity.”

“Well, Serenity,” Cala said mildly, “as Mer Aisava suggested, we should begin with a meal in a tavern. There we can ask around for lodgings and the news from Cetho. We would suggest dining at two tables, set well apart: Mer Aisava, Min Dichin, and the three michen posing as a young family — we can tweak the disguising maz to suggest resemblances, and to make Min Dichin seem old enough to have a son of nine years — and the rest of us posing as a group of young men seeking work.”

“Sounds good to us,” Valto said quietly, then raised her voice to breezily ask Csevet, “What think’st thou, husband?”

“Methinks it a decent plan, dear wife,” Csevet replied, slipping back into his badlands accent. Though he did not speak in the alternatively peevish and seductive tones Maia recalled all too well from a certain alley, Maia felt his face color nonetheless.

He turned to the children and knelt. “Hithera, Mireän, Ino: you will all pretend to be their children while in the tavern,” he said. “Call them ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama,’ and call each other ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ instead of any given names.”

“Yes, Serenity,” said Hithera, who looked unfazed. Mireän giggled a little, but she nodded. Ino looked confused. “Just say nothing in front of the tavern maid or anyone else we don’t know. All right, Ino?” Mireän asked, taking her sister’s hand.

“All right, Miree,” Ino said uncertainly.

A number of taverns dotted the high street. Csevet picked one called The Spoonbill, whose façade was hung with a sign of said bird in stylized form. It was not quite the largest tavern but seemed to be the busiest, and what diners they could see through the front window seemed mostly respectable in dress. Then they separated into the groups Cala had suggested and moved in different directions along the street. The plan was that the “family” would return to the tavern ten minutes later, and the “workmen,” towing the cart, would enter it ten minutes after that.

The Spoonbill’s dining room was generous of size and filled with the aromas of roasted goose and potatoes as well as those of wine and barley beer. Though custom was brisk for so early in the supper hour, at least half a dozen tables that Maia could see stood vacant. Cala spoke quietly to the host and passed him a coin. The man nodded, had a serving boy take their cart for safekeeping, and led them to a table for four that was at the rear of the dining room and up against a wall.

Beshelar and Cala ushered Maia into the chair nearest the wall before they and Taris took their own seats. Maia spotted Csevet, Valto, and the children seated well across the room, already settled with mugs of tea. Though he could not hear their words at this distance, Csevet and Valto appeared to be having an animated conversation with the tavern maid who was waiting on them. Hithera was listening intently, a rapt expression on his face, and Mireän was tucking a napkin into the neck of Ino’s bodice.

Beshelar had no sooner settled into his chair beside Maia than his shoulders went stiff and his ears flattened. “What’s towar— ah,” Cala said, following his fellow nohecharis’s gaze across the room. Though he did not mirror Beshelar’s wrath, the sudden tension in his form, face, and ears was unmistakable.

Maia looked out onto the dining room but saw nothing that leapt out at him as amiss. “What do you see, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Three tables away from us, Serenity,” Beshelar said in a thunderous undertone. “Large round table, with twelve men around it. They are all former Untheileneise Guardsmen. Deserters. Except for one, whom we are sure you will recognize upon closer observation.”

Maia looked at the group of men. They were roughly two-thirds elves and one-third goblins, with some admixtures of blood in either direction. They ranged from barely adult to the cusp of middle age, and they all seemed quite fit beneath their ordinary workmen’s clothes. But to Maia’s eye there was nothing to distinguish most of them from longshoremen, carters, miners, or any other sort of man who made his living by the strength of his back. He supposed Beshelar, himself once a guardsman, recognized them all personally, and Cala at least a few of them.

Then his eyes fell upon the twelfth figure — tall, bleak-eyed, with the sharpness of feature that marked the peoples of the western plains and the Edonara — and Maia’s heart stilled in his breast.

“So he did not return to Aveio,” he murmured. “Much less Calestho.”

“Presumably he found work here,” Beshelar muttered.

“Perhaps he felt too ashamed to return to his family,” Cala said quietly. Taris said nothing, though he looked confused and he had tensed as well.

“Fair evening, lads,” a tavern maid sang out as she approached their table. The tinkle of her many silver earrings, at least two dozen per ear, accompanied her greeting. She was about Maia’s age and buxom, the evidence thereof spilling out the top of her blouse. Taris blushed and lowered his head at the sight. “What’ll you have tonight?” she asked in the plural.

“Just tea for our drink, please; we’ve a job in the morning,” Cala said with a smile. Maia restrained himself from jolting: Cala now spoke in the mellow drawl of eastern Thu-Athamar, rather than with his usual diction, to which Maia never would have thought to apply the word _polished_. Until now. And it did not seem that Cala was affecting his accent, as Csevet frequently did. Maia wondered if the Athmaz’are, like the Untheileneise Guard, trained all manner of non-court diction out of its recruits.

“Of course, darling. Out here from the east, art thou, or are you all?”

“I am, originally. But we all came up from Cetho,” Cala said with a hint of glumness.

The tavern maid clacked her tongue. “Terrible, what’s been toward. Glad you’re all safe and earning a wage, at least for now. D’you all know what you want for supper? We’ve goose on the spit, rabbit in the stewpot, cream of beet soup in the kettle, potatoes and leeks and parsnips in the coals, and both white and rye rolls. Dessert’s pears soaked in metheglin and baked in a crust with sweet cheese.”

The others looked at Maia. He considered assuming the Barizheise accent again, but instead he merely shrugged and looked back at his nohecharei. Cala, understanding, said, “Rabbit with a mix of vegetables and rye rolls, for all of us, thanks.”

“Ah, I like men who’re easy to please,” the tavern maid said, and something in her voice made it patently clear she was not speaking only of food. Maia blushed. Then she turned and sauntered off, earrings ajingle. Maia suspected she did not normally walk with _that_ much motion in her hips.

“Is she…” he asked the others, trailing off.

“She supplements her income as a tavern maid by bringing men up to her room, Serenity,” Cala said, now speaking again in his normal voice. “She is making us all aware of this, in case we would like to … sample the wares. Which we do not believe would be a wise idea, for multiple reasons.”

“We were not minded to do so ourself,” Maia muttered. Beshelar and Taris looked faintly relieved. Then he remembered what they had been speaking of before her arrival. “Lieutenant, Cala,” he said, inclining his head toward the table of twelve men. In the plural, he asked, “Would it make sense for us to … make contact with him somehow? Without alerting the others to our presence?” He switched back to the formal. “We should like to invite him to join us, an he is agreeable, and we do not mean merely for supper.”

“We must be careful, Serenity,” Beshelar said curtly, “as we do not know the loyalties of the deserters, or to what extent he has thrown in his lot with them.”

Cala knitted his brows a moment, then leaned over to Taris. “Mer Rishonar,” he said. Then he spoke under his breath, and Maia did not catch all of what he said.

Taris raised his own brows. Though he spoke quietly, Maia did hear his words: “Is — is that not asking for a fight, Cala Athmaza?”

“Between your obvious youth and out-of-town accent and the nature of the fellow in question, we very much doubt it would come to that,” Cala replied, equally quietly. He reached into his pocket and then slid something, a coin from the sound of it, across the table to Taris. “The men with him are a mixed lot, but they are also of relatively even temperament.”

“All right,” Taris said, though he did not look completely convinced. He pocketed the coin, stood, pushed in his chair, and moved through the thickets of tables toward the counter where drinks were poured and dishes laid out for the tavern maids to bring to customers. Maia tracked his progress across the room. On the other side of it, he saw Csevet’s head move, as if he too had taken note of Taris.

Taris stood at the counter for a few minutes, his posture one of obvious discomfort, though his ears were set. Eventually the tavernkeeper spoke to him, then poured him a glass. Taris nodded stiffly and turned about, the glass in hand. From the color, Maia guessed it held barley beer.

When Taris passed the table of twelve men, he stumbled. The contents of his glass sloshed over the shoulder of the tall, sharp-faced man, who looked up at him in surprise. Maia noted that the other eleven men tensed, their ears starting to go back.

“Oh, sorry, my friend!” Taris exclaimed loudly, his Osreialhalaneise accent quite pronounced, his ears falling dramatically. He grabbed a corner of his cloak and, clumsily, dabbed at the wet patch on the man’s coat. “Tripped on the edge of a floorboard like the oaf I am. Can my mates and I buy thee a drink to make up for my clumsiness, maybe a bite too?”

“Er,” the man said awkwardly.

The other eleven men had been staring intently at Taris since he’d spilled the drink, but their tension eased as quickly as it had arisen. One of them, a burly man with a thick mustache, said something in an undertone to their beer-dampened companion, who replied equally inaudibly and rose. He followed Taris to where Maia and the nohecharei sat, and Taris pulled up a chair for him.

“Fair evening, fellows,” the newcomer said in the accent of the west, with its tart vowels and bitten-off final consonants. Maia suddenly thought of Haru, the gardener at Edonomee, who had sounded more or less the same.

“Fair evening, Telimezh,” he said quietly.

Telimezh looked up, and from how wide his eyes grew, Maia guessed that Cala had enabled him to see through the maz.

“Serenity,” he whispered. “Cala Athmaza… Lieutenant Beshelar.” His voice cracked on Beshelar’s name, and his ears hung low.

“We don’t advise you to prostrate yourself,” Cala said drily. “Nor even bow your head. You may wish to set your ears, however. Your friends at the other table can still see you for who you are. We don’t want any trouble from them, nor attention from anyone else.”

“They … they’ll give you no trouble, they’ve had enough to last a lifetime. We all have.” Telimezh shook himself, setting his ears as Cala had suggested. In the formal he said, “We thought you were dead, Serenity. We’d heard rumors, but … well, rumors are rumors.”

“Taris, would you please bring him the drink you promised him?” Maia asked. “Telimezh, what would you have?”

“Rye liquor, please,” Telimezh said sharply. “The strongest they have.” Cala and Beshelar exchanged a look but said nothing as Cala dug into his pocket again and passed another coin to Taris.

“Back with your glass in a moment,” Taris said as he stood and departed again for the counter.

Maia studied Telimezh’s face. From three tables away, he had looked much as Maia had last seen him, save for the bleak look. Up close, however, his color was like that of milk gone bad, shot through with the red of broken blood vessels in his nose and upper cheeks — much like Setheris’s, if not to the same extent. His gaze was not merely bleak, as Cala’s had been at the mention of Dazhis in the cabin: it was full of shame and pain, and it literally hurt Maia to see it.

“Tell me, what hast been doing this last month?” he asked Telimezh softly.

Telimezh started at the informal address, a spasm of guilt seizing his face. Then he said, “I … I couldn’t go back to Calestho. I couldn’t face my kin. They’d have wondered why I didn’t protect you from the Princess Sheveän and Lord Chavar.” He swallowed hard. “And they’d have been right.”

“That is foolishness,” Maia said, his voice still low but with a note of sternness. “Wert betrayed by thy partner, whom hadst every reason to trust. To not have trusted him would have impaired thine ability to do thy job in any case.”

Telimezh shook his head. “It matters not, Serenity. I should have perceived Dazhis’s perfidy, but I did not, and thus I failed you.”

“Telimezh,” Cala said with an exasperation Maia could not remember having heard from him before. “As we told you at least a dozen times before you left court, we had known Dazhis far longer than you had. We did not seen his perfidy, either. Nor did the Adremaza, who recommended him as Second Nohecharis. An both a dachenmaza and an adremaza who were acquainted with Dazhis for six or seven years were fooled, there is no earthly reason that a lieutenant without mazeise gifts who had known him but for several months would _not_ have been fooled.” Telimezh did not reply, merely looked down at the tabletop.

“Cala Athmaza speaks in sooth,” Beshelar added astringently, “but it is not as though you did not know our opinion on the matter as well.”

When Telimezh remained silent, Maia prompted him again. “So… hast been working in Ezho?”

Telimezh nodded miserably. “I’d heard there was more work here by the confluence of the rivers than in Aveio. Even when they’re frozen over there’s plenty of land trade. In any event I’d missed the day’s last airship to Aveio, the next one was to Ezho, and rather than spending one more moment in Cetho I decided I’d take the latter. When first I landed, I took a room upstairs here at The Spoonbill, and I began to take odd jobs. Hauling goods between wagons and warehouses, mostly, sometimes guard duty. Then some of mine and Lieutenant Beshelar’s old comrades arrived in town.” Beshelar’s jaw tightened and his ears twitched as if to go back, but Telimezh was still focused on Maia. “The twelve of us now rent one large room in the Longshoremen’s Quarter and sleep in bunk beds. We still take our meals here. We work, when we can get work, and we pool our money for those of us who can’t. Sometimes we wench or gamble. And … that’s all, really.” The last few words were all but muttered.

It was then that Taris returned with a tall, brimming glass of something dark amber that, to Maia, smelled as if it could have been used to strip paint from a wall. “Many thanks…er…” Telimezh squinted at Taris.

Taris held out his arm. “Taris Rishonar. We have been traveling with His Serenity and his other companions for most of the past month.”

Telimezh clasped the proffered arm. “Lieutenant Etris Telimezh, late of the Untheileneise Guard, former Second Nohecharis to His Serenity Edrehasivar VII. Well met, Mer Rishonar.”

“Ah,” Taris said, comprehension in his voice, sadness in his eyes. “Well met, Lieutenant.”

Telimezh had no sooner released Taris’s arm than he picked up the glass and drained it all in one long swallow. Taris looked dumbfounded. Beshelar stared openly in shock. Cala looked saddened and tired. Maia thought again of Setheris, and he found himself seized by a wholly unexpected sympathy for his unlovely cousin.

“Telimezh,” he said gently. “It was mine idea to bring thee over to our table; Cala Athmaza put Mer Rishonar up to the spilling of his own drink on thee. A larger group of us are returning to Cetho to reclaim my throne. I would ask thee to join us.”

Telimezh’s hand shook on the empty glass, which he had not relinquished even after setting it down. “I … I am not worthy of your consideration, Serenity,” he muttered to the tabletop.

“Indeed. His Serenity can do much better than a tavern drunkard wallowing in self-pity,” Beshelar snapped. “No shortage of those, in Ezho or elsewhere.”

Telimezh’s eyes widened, and they flashed with an anger Maia had never seen in them before. “Ah, so didst not leave thy stones in Cetho after all,” Beshelar said with extremely heavy irony. “Not entirely.”

“Beshelar, let him be,” Cala said wearily.

“We will _not_ let him be!” Though Beshelar’s voice remained discreetly low, it crackled with fury. “From the moment he awakened from the cantrip to the moment he left the Alcethmeret he did naught but feel sorry for himself, and we see that’s not changed. It was not his failure — in sooth, after His Serenity he and Nemer were the ones most wronged by Dazhis Athmaza — but it perversely comforts him somehow to think he could have outwitted a dachenmaza whom everyone trusted. Art not _that_ good of a soldier, Etris.”

Telimezh bared his teeth. “Ever the judge of other soldiers’ worth, artn’t thou, Deret?” His native accent was coming through far more sharply now, to the point that his Guard-trained voice in Maia’s memory could have been that of a completely different man. “Tell us, how’dst ever march in parade drills with that massive stave up thine arse?”

Beshelar’s straight spine grew even straighter, his broad shoulders further squared. “That ‘massive stave,’ as thou putt’st it, is called duty. Of course a quitter such as thee would know nothing of it.”

“This ‘quitter’ would happily meet thee in the stable courtyard out back, an lik’st, to settle our differences,” Telimezh snarled, and the last few words came out slurred.

Maia thought of Setheris again, but with no pity this time, only fear. “Stop,” he said, raising his voice slightly. All four of his companions stared at him. He thought he saw a head turn at an adjacent table, but the overall din of conversation seemed to continue unabated.

He began again. “We will _not_ have our men, and especially not our nohecharei, brawling with one another. Lieutenant Beshelar, we are sure your motives for how you have just spoken to Lieutenant Telimezh were good” — though Maia was in fact not entirely sure of that — “but we order you to desist from it. Lieutenant Telimezh, we think you are capable of far better judgment than inviting Lieutenant Beshelar to fisticuffs, even if you are not quite sober.”

“Not quite,” Beshelar muttered.

 _“Have done,”_ Maia hissed, and though this time he was careful not to raise his voice, all four of his dining companions flinched at the fury in it. Beshelar looked ashamed of himself. Telimezh seemed mired in self-pity again. Cala looked even more tired than he had before. Taris looked as though he’d rather have been answering a call to nature in a mountain blizzard.

“Supper is _served!”_ a cheerful feminine voice sang out, to the accompaniment of tinkling earrings. Then the tavern maid swerved back into view, a well-laden platter hoisted on her shoulder; Maia would have thought it too heavy for her, but she balanced it quite adroitly. “Ah, you all know Etris, then! Might I satiate thine appetite too, my handsome one?”

Telimezh’s sudden blush filled in all the chalky space between his broken blood vessels. “Er. Whatever they’re having, Verelan.”

“Art all right with watching thy friends eat for a bit? I’d fain not carry all this food back to the kitchens and let it cool.”

Telimezh waved one hand limply. “Aye, that’s fine.”

Verelan gracefully laid out the plates before the rest of them, set a wicker basket of rye rolls plus a ramekin of fresh-churned butter at the center of the table, and refilled all their mugs from a steaming teapot. “I’ll return with thy meal as soon as I can, darling,” she said to Telimezh, her free hand squeezing his shoulder, then wriggled away as she had before. He turned about to watch her, his eyes following her bottom, for a moment. Then he faced the rest of the table again.

“Your supper is on our account as well,” Cala said in the plural.

Telimezh began to frown, but the implacable looks he got from both First Nohecharei seemed to stem any objections he might have had.

“Have some bread, Telimezh,” Beshelar said. Maia got the impression his First Nohecharis was biting back the words _Couldst use something in thy belly other than rye liquor._ Telimezh, to his surprise, nodded obediently and took a few rolls from the basket. He ate them smeared heavily with butter.

The rest of them began to tuck into their meals. The rabbit stew had been poured over the roast potatoes, with the other vegetables off to the side. Maia had had rabbit any number of times in the kitchen at Edonomee, after Haru had trapped one or two, but he’d not had it in the strongly peppered sauce that The Spoonbill used for the dish. It was delicious, though picking out all the tiny bones was the usual trial.

Telimezh had emptied the basket of rolls when Verelan returned with his meal and a mug of tea for him. “Here thou art, darling,” she crooned as she put it all down before him. “Now, an need’st _aught_ else at all, Etris, just signal for me, and I’ll come running.”

“Thank’ee, Verelan,” Telimezh muttered. She patted his shoulder again and undulated off, Telimezh staring at her as he had before.

“She’s very friendly,” Cala said drily. The corner of Telimezh’s mouth twitched. Maia could not remember ever having seen him come close to smiling before. Then again, the same could be said of Beshelar.

“She’s a nice lass,” Telimezh said to his plate. Beshelar snorted. Maia suspected the two of them were operating on very different definitions of _nice lass._

“Telimezh,” Maia said as his Second Nohecharis began to eat his supper. “We were also wondering how many of the former guardsmen might wish to join us.” When Beshelar’s head rose sharply, his ears back, Maia held up his hand. “Lieutenant Beshelar, it would not hurt to ask.”

Telimezh put his fork down, and he seemed to consider Maia’s words carefully. Then he said, “I think, Serenity, they might in fact be interested.”

“Can they be _trusted?”_ Beshelar demanded. “They deserted once; who’s to say they won’t again?”

Telimezh picked up his mug and took a long sip. Then he said in the plural, “What we could not see from our stations in the Alcethmeret, Deret, was how pernicious the influence of … the current regent has been on the Untheileneise Guard. From what they’ve told me, he outright replaced many guardsmen with his own men. His ‘Hounds,’ he calls them. Many of them were once soldiers, and they’re all fit enough of body… but they are not Untheileneise Guardsmen. There isn’t the same unity of purpose as before, and their loyalty is to the man who now stands behind the throne. Not to the throne itself, and certainly not to the young emperor. And, in their minds, they seem not to have left the battlefield behind.”

Turning to Maia, he continued, “The first duty of the Untheileneise Guard, Serenity, is to protect the emperor and his family, their second to protect other civilians at court. They — we — are taught to defuse conflict when possible, cover those we protect with our bodies if need be, and use force only as a last resort. The Hounds, on the other hand, are eager to fight whenever possible and to abuse those who cannot fight back. Many servants have left, having been beaten … or worse.” Maia shuddered, thinking of Milu Rishonin and the soldiers, Csevet in the shed at Parugo, and … Idra.

“My companions did not wish to desert,” Telimezh added, “and they remained in their posts as long as they could. But eventually they felt they could no longer serve in the Guard with honor, and they turned in their uniforms and left. They … they are not happy men. They miss the court, they miss Cetho, and they miss the sense of purpose they had before the second coup.”

He paused again, then added almost inaudibly, “And so do I.”

A silence settled over their table. Beshelar looked disgusted still, but the disgust seemed not to be so much for Telimezh anymore. Cala looked somber, but less weary and more sympathetic. Taris was wide-eyed.

Then Cala said, “Serenity… we have a suggestion as to how to proceed.”

***

Maia stepped tightly and warily between Beshelar to his left, Telimezh slightly forward to his right, and Cala slightly behind to his right. They all kept so close to him that they were nearly pressed up against him. He did not blame them. Most emperors — dethroned or not, maz-disguised or not — would not go walking through the half-darkened streets of a young city full of workmen, refugees, and criminals after nightfall. Beshelar and Telimezh both had their hands in their pockets, upon the handles of their blades. The ears of all three nohecharei, Cala’s especially, were high and flaring, attuned to the slightest unexpected noise behind them.

But Maia found Ezho’s poorer residential streets not so much truly threatening as saddeningly squalid. Despite the cold, men lingered in and near doorways conversing, elf or goblin or, in one case, _Cel._ There were women too, some of them girls obviously short of their majority, standing about with shabby coats thrown back to reveal the same charms Verelan had displayed at The Spoonbill and with their skirts kilted up to their thighs. Shivering in the cold, they called out incessantly to every male passerby, their voices ranging from the flat vowels of the west to the soft drawl of the east to the accents of other lands: _Darling, I’ll ride thee like a pony, come with me, pretty child, I’ll suck thee like a sweet, only five coppers, handsome, I’ll take thee in mine arse._

Maia’s face and ears blazed hot, but the words did not excite him, as Csevet’s had in Chezhvaho; they shocked and repulsed him. The girls and women were all ill-fed, what little he could see of their color was not good, and their alluring tone did not hide the unanimous note of desperation in their calls. At least a few bore bruises on their cheeks, and one a blackened eye. Maia had heard of common women who serviced nobles and lived quite well off the proceeds, a rare few even marrying clients who were not first-born sons, others building respectable businesses out of their earnings. These were not such women. They were not even Verelan, whose supplementary job was not one Maia envied but who certainly had not seemed starved or desperate.

“We’re almost there,” Telimezh said curtly in the plural as they rounded a corner, passing a knot of shouting men surrounding two others at fisticuffs. Maia flinched at each thud, remembering Doler in the warehouse, remembering Setheris too. His hand stole into his pocket to clutch at the Archprelate’s icon.

Telimezh stopped at a building four stories high, its front door flush with the sidewalk. As he retrieved his key, Cala and Beshelar herded Maia closer to Telimezh’s back, casting baleful looks over their shoulders. The key turned in the outer lock, and Telimezh ushered them into a tiny lobby that consisted only of one inner door, a sputtering gaslight, and the bottom of a narrow stairway. The air smelled of mold, dust, stale sweat, and overly cooked cabbage.

“Fourth floor,” Telimezh said quietly. He ascended first, Maia following, Cala and Beshelar just behind. The tramp of their boots seemed to echo loudly in the nighttime quiet.

The fourth floor, like the second and third, was a hallway of middling length with only one gaslight. Though it did not fully light the entire floor, it showed up dark spots on the walls and ceiling where the plaster had fallen away. Something on the floor chittered, and Maia heard the scrape of claws. He shuddered.

“Does a revethmaz work on vermin, maza?” Beshelar muttered, his voice thick with disgust.

“Would you kill a fly with a sledgehammer, Lieutenant?” Cala asked breezily.

“If that fly were seeking out His Serenity for a meal, indeed we would.”

“Not after the fly had landed on His Serenity, we hope. In any case they’re far more afraid of us all than we are of them. Didn’t you ever encounter any mice in the barracks?”

“That’s what the cats were for,” Beshelar said sharply. “Apparently the landlord has not considered retaining the services of one, and none has invited itself in.”

Telimezh stopped at the second-to-last door on the right. He produced yet another key, and he opened the door.

The space inside was all one room, not especially large for an entire flat. A triple bunk bed stood in each corner; tools, boots, a coatrack, and several trunks stood against the walls. There was one window, covered with a shabby bedsheet, and even through the glass and the sheet it seemed to breathe cold air into the room; Maia could hear shouts from the street below as well. In the room’s center was a large table, and around it sat the eleven other former Untheileneise Guardsmen. They held playing cards in their hands, and before them on the table were coins stacked to various heights.

“Brought thy new friends back here, Etris?” one of them said without looking up. “Hope they’re ready to lose a few coppers to me tonight.”

“Not quite,” Telimezh said. Cala waved one hand, dispelling the disguising maz around them.

The eleven all looked up at their guests. Their ears went back in unison. “Balls of Ulis,” someone said hoarsely.

“Hardly a meet way to greet your rightful emperor,” Cala said mildly.

The men stared, but not a one rose, let alone bowed or prostrated himself. Maia felt a jab of anxiety.

The one who had first spoken — Maia recognized him as the same one who had spoken quietly to Telimezh after Taris had spilled his beer on him — said, “Emperor in right, perhaps. Emperor in fact, no longer.”

“Why do you think we have come to you?” Maia said in the formal. “We seek to make right and fact one and the same again, and we would be honored if you would join us in the effort.”

The man jeered. “Oh, of a certain. Thirteen former guardsmen, one maza, and one beardless bumpkin from the mountains. Against the entire rest of the military, plus the Tethimada and all their gold, their barely leashed attack dogs, and their own murderous maza. Excellent odds. I see why didst invite them back for cards now, Etris.” A few of the other men snickered.

“There are more than just those of us you see before you, or whom you saw in the tavern,” Beshelar said. There was no tone of entreaty in his voice, but it was more earnest, less condemnatory, than Maia was accustomed to hearing. The first man shook his head in disgust, which made his mustache tremble.

Another man said in a more respectful tone than the first, “Art a fine soldier and a good man, Deret, but didst take a death pledge unto … His Grace.” Maia’s heart sank at the epithet. “It cannot but weight thy judgment in this matter.”

“I took a death pledge unto him as well,” Telimezh said quietly.

“For all the good it’s done thee,” the first man snapped.

“It did him a fair sight better than the company of you lot,” Beshelar retorted. The first man squared his shoulders, the light in his eyes savage and his ears beginning to flatten.

Maia, alarm flaring beneath his ribs, raised his hands and opened them. “Please. We want no violence here. Lieutenant Beshelar, control your temper.”

“Serenity,” Beshelar said tightly.

Maia focused on the man with the mustache. “Please… tell me your name and former rank?”

As so often before, the unexpectedly deferential address was disarming. The man blinked, then said, “Pacha Baleär. Former Sergeant in the Untheileneise Guard.”

“Sergeant Baleär. Telimezh has said that you all quit the Guard because you felt you could no longer serve in it with honor. Would you not like to restore that honor, in service to your nation?”

Baleär sighed. “Your Grace. We understand your intent is good, but the odds are not with you.”

“The odds have favored me far better than you could know,” Maia said quietly. “Since we were deposed, the gods have intervened to save us from an assassin, an ogre, a killing bronchine, freezing cold, discovery by soldiers, and several falls to our death in the badlands.” He heard Cala’s quiet intake of breath, saw Beshelar’s eyes widen, and he recalled he had not told them about either the ogre or the bronchine.

He had not told them of the icon of Cstheio, either, nor shown it to them, but now he withdrew it from his cloak pocket and held it before him. The weak gaslight on the wall picked out glints inside the half-stone. “We trust that the gods will continue to shield us.”

_Not quite the gods. Just one man, for the most part. But they need not know that, not now. And who is to say the gods did not set that man in motion?_

Telimezh’s companions were watching Maia carefully, a look of reassessment in their eyes. The nobility might have scorned the gods, but, from what he had heard, the average military man was considerably more pious under his rough exterior.

“Furthermore,” he continued, “while we do not agree with Lieutenant Beshelar that you are a poor influence on Lieutenant Telimezh, it truly does not seem that your current situation is enviable. Twelve of you, living in this chilly room in this vermin-infested building, either performing hard labor or finding no work at all, drinking, and wenching. What are your prospects? What _will_ your prospects be, in an Ethuveraz ruled by the Tethimada?”

“Nonetheless,” another man said, “we remain alive.”

Maia did not answer him, and his nohecharei, understanding, remained silent as well. The man’s gaze shifted away, and Maia could taste a faint, faint hope on his tongue.

Finally, Baleär said, “Your Grace, we beg you to let us discuss this amongst ourselves for a full day. It is a weighty decision.”

Maia, taking a deep breath, said, “Then we would have your answer twenty-four hours hence?”

“Yes. Whether it be yea or nay, you will hear it by this time tomorrow night.”

Telimezh glanced at Maia, a look of both disappointment and determination on his sharp features. Maia gave him a slight nod and said, “We appreciate that you have all heard us out, and we look forward to hearing of your decision. Cala Athmaza, Lieutenant Beshelar, would you please accompany us back to our lodgings for the night?”

“Serenity,” Cala said evenly. The three of them filed out, Beshelar in the lead, Cala in the rear. Maia turned a final time to look at Telimezh’s face and hoped, sincerely, it was not his very last glimpse of it. Or his second-to-last.

***

“Who’s there?” Csevet’s voice called from behind the door at Beshelar’s knock.

“Bera,” Maia called back. He heard the clink and shift of chains and tumblers, and then the door opened to admit him, Beshelar, and Cala. They walked into the suite of three small bedrooms and a modest receiving room, quite mean by the standards of the Untheileneise Court but near-luxury compared with the lodgings of the former guardsmen.

At The Spoonbill, Telimezh had made his apologies to his fellows, claiming that he wished to further converse with the men he had just met and thus would not be joining the nightly card game. Five minutes later and a few streets away, the party of “workmen” rejoined the “family,” who had left the tavern first. Csevet and Valto were brimming with information obtained from their tavern maid, which included where to find salubrious lodgings for a reasonable fee. They all settled upon a hostel that catered to respectable unmarried women, families with children, clerics and mazei, and the old. Its décor had seen better days, but it was by and large in good repair and kept clean.

“Don’t bounce upon the bed,” Maia heard Taris say sharply in one of the bedrooms. “Wilt break the springs, and we’ll have to pay damages to the hostelkeeper.”

“Sorry,” Hithera replied. Maia sighed inwardly. The girls were accustomed to court standards of michen behavior, but Hithera very likely felt cooped up in this suite. Maia would have to ask Taris to take his brother on a long walk around Ezho in the morning. He supposed it could not hurt to send Mireän along with them, too; she was more disciplined but not much less energetic. Ino, who would tire too easily and might not be able to hold her tongue, would best be kept indoors.

The door now safely closed and locked again, Csevet dropped Maia a deep bow and the First Nohecharei a shallower one, which Cala and Beshelar returned. He then asked, “How did matters proceed, Serenity?” His features and ears were tense.

“They asked for twenty-four hours to decide,” Maia said neutrally. He suppressed his own anxiety; after all, as Baleär had stated, it was a momentous decision.

“We suppose that is reasonable,” Csevet said. His tension eased slightly, but not entirely.

After the children were put to bed, the rest of them sat up talking for only a little while. Without knowing how Telimezh’s fellows would choose — or, for that matter, Telimezh himself, if his fellows changed his mind — it was difficult to make plans, and there was little else to stay up for. Valto joined Mireän and Ino in the middling-sized bed in the mid-sized bedroom. In the smallest bedroom, Taris slipped into the narrow bed alongside his brother, and Csevet took the matching bed opposite them.

Maia had the room with the largest bed to himself; Beshelar stood against its door while Cala slept on the sofa of the receiving room for the first half of the night. Maia stared up at the ceiling into darkness for a long while, wishing yet again he could exchange his relative comfort for nothing more than the feel of Csevet’s head on his shoulder, before he drifted off to sleep.

The morning dawned cold and overcast, the outside air smelling of snow. Between the weather and Cala’s wish to conserve as much mazeise energy as possible, it was decided they would mainly stay indoors. Taris did take the elder children out for a walk in the morning, but Cala warned them that he would be unable to make the disguising maz he placed on them last into the afternoon. Valto played with Ino until the little girl tired, put her down for a nap, and played with her again when she awakened. When Taris returned, he and Valto talked of hunting, while the three children found a board game in the receiving room and entertained themselves with it. The nohecharei were well trained to suffer hours of boredom, and they took the opportunity to switch off and obtain a few extra hours of rest while they could. Csevet went out under a disguising maz at intervals to bring them food and drink, replenish their supplies, and listen for any news that might be of use to them.

Maia sat down to play for a bit with the children, and he listened to the hunting talk for a while as well. Otherwise he had only the small bookcase in the receiving room to keep himself occupied, and it was not especially well stocked. The suite being one normally occupied by families with children, there were several michen-books, a guide to touring Ezho (he was surprised such a thing existed, in sooth), a book of local laws and customs, a fashion magazine two years out of date, and an exceedingly dry treatise on the fishing industry of the upper Istandaärtha and lower Evresartha valleys. Maia finished the laws and customs book quickly, finished the tourism book only slightly less quickly, lasted no more than an hour before he gave up on trying to care about the reproductive cycles of pickerel and gar, and had even less patience for the reading materials that remained.

He was chagrined at his own fidgetiness. At Edonomee, time had often hung heavily on his hands, but he had had the freedom to explore around the estate and swamps. At court, he had had very little liberty of movement, but he had seldom had a spare moment to waste. The combination of enforced confinement and idleness tried him greatly, and his anticipation of the guardsmen’s decision made it worse.

Eventually Csevet came in with their supper: shad, pan fried with chunks of potatoes and purslane leaves and wrapped up in a combination of ragpaper and very old newspapers. Under his arm he had a bottle of inexpensive wine. Though Maia suspected their rooms would smell like fish and oil for days after they had vacated, his stomach growled at the aroma nonetheless. The others, save the nohecharei, seemed equally eager for the meal, and Maia was not sure how much of it was hunger and how much the break in the monotony.

“There are still newspapers left to wrap food in?” Cala asked.

Csevet grimaced. “The fryshops started conserving them as soon as news of the second coup got out. But they’ve had to start supplementing them with ragpaper. The entire meal cost several coppers more than it would have before Winternight.”

“What’s toward with the newsprinters?” Maia asked as Valto pulled plain utensils, plates, and napkins from a small cabinet near the receiving room table.

Csevet disguised his surprise almost immediately, but not quite fast enough to indicate that Maia had asked a rather foolish question. “Dach’osmer Tethimar has had many of them shut down, Serenity, for printing what he’s deemed ‘treasonous’ articles. His agents have also threatened the satirists, driving a few of them into hiding.”

“Of course,” Maia said in disgust — disgust for Tethimar, and disgust for himself that it had not occurred to him. He recalled saying to Chavar, seemingly so long ago now, _We do not wish our father to be the target of satires._ But even Setheris had grudgingly admitted that Varenechibel, as thin-skinned and as vindictive as he had been, had never attempted to stop their publication, let alone that of the newspapers. It was considered a tyrannical action to take, the sort that Parliament, the Judiciate, and the Corazhas had been established to provide a check against… but an emperor, or regent, who had essentially declared martial law on his own people would easily take such action.

The table was meant for only two adults and two children at most. Maia, Csevet, Valto with Ino on her lap, and Mireän took the table. The Rishonadeisei ate seated on the sofa, Taris repeatedly warning Hithera to blot his fingers on his napkin and not on the upholstery. Cala ate standing against the wall while Beshelar remained on duty for the moment. The shad was extremely fresh, having been caught early that morning by ice fisherman; the wine, which they watered heavily, was sweet and mellow. Maia watched his nieces eat daintily, watched his youngest sworn man correct his little brother’s table manners, watched Csevet watch the rest of them with a faintly amused contentment, and felt himself at a sort of peace for the first time since they had set foot in Ezho.

They were perhaps two thirds of the way through the meal, Beshelar now eating his supper, when there was a series of hard raps on the door. Heads went up, ears went back, and Maia’s heart began to pound. Beshelar set down his plate with fork and knife crossed upon them, and he and Cala stepped closer to Maia from behind. Csevet wiped his hands on his napkin, then rose to answer the door. “Who’s there?”

“Etris.”

Csevet undid the locks and chains and swung the door open to reveal Telimezh — and his eleven companions — in the hallway beyond.

Maia’s heart caught in his throat as the twelve of them filed in. So many of them, so tall and so broad of shoulder, they barely fit into the receiving room. Ino whimpered in fear; Valto shushed her and stroked her hair.

Then, as one, the twelve of them knelt on the shabby carpet. They all still wore workmen’s clothes and boots, but they moved with a collective precision that had not been entirely blunted by a month without practice. Sergeant Pacha Baleär, late of the Untheileneise Guard, said with lowered head, “We are all at Your Serenity’s service.”

For a moment, no one spoke. Maia looked about to see Taris and Hithera gaping, Valto watching with her brows raised, Mireän trying not to stare, Ino alternating between staring and hiding her face in Valto’s bosom, Csevet trying with only partial success to hide his relief, Cala grinning broadly, and Beshelar blinking rapidly as if he had grit in his eyes. Maia said the first thing that came to mind: “We’re so sorry; had we known you were all coming for supper, we’d have bought more fish and wine.”

A wave of chuckles circled the receiving room, and his heart was buoyed along on it.

***

“Hey! Wagoner!”

Dema pulled the horses up to the street end of the dock. On bitterly cold nights in Ezho, there were precious few hauling jobs to be had between sundown and sunup, his hours of operation. The river trade was halted, the merchant trains were often delayed by storms until later in the day, the ice fishermen would not return with their catch until well into the morning, and very few potential fares stood about on the corners. A group of roughly twenty people, including michen, out at this hour and in this weather was thus a surprising sight to see — and a rare opportunity for profit.

A broad-shouldered man with a military bearing — though not quite the same as that of Dema’s brother serving on the steppes — detached himself from the rest and approached the horses. “Morning, sir. Could you take us all as far south as we need to go to catch the next steamboat to Cetho?”

Dema, who was seldom if ever called _sir,_ said, “We could.”

“How much?”

He did the calculations rapidly in his head. Eighteen adults with three michen, call it nineteen adults, a little cart of provisions with them, five or six miles out of his way and back, frigid weather, icy ground. He named a fee. It was high, even considering the strain the load would put on his horses.

While Dema had been working the figure out in his head, a second man, much slighter of build and rather younger, had joined the first. He fixed cold pale eyes on Dema and countered him with a far lower figure.

Dema raised his brows. “You’re all out here at arse o’clock in the morning, it’s cold enough to freeze the ballocks off an emperor’s effigy, and you’re going to bargain with us for fare?”

The second man held his gaze steadily. “We can walk there, an need be,” he said, his breath steaming before him. “We’re all hale enough, and the littlest can be carried. We’d rather not, in this weather, but we’d rather be cheated even less. And mind your tongue, please; michen have longer ears than their elders, and we don’t need them asking us what you just said.”

Speaking less scabrously but not apologizing for his earlier language, Dema named a figure between his original one and the insultingly low counteroffer. The second man raised his counteroffer only slightly. They spent the next thirty seconds throwing out numbers until they met in the middle. Not the best net profit for the two or three hours’ work, but rather more than Dema had anticipated making ten minutes earlier, and he’d still be able to catch a full day’s sleep. “Get aboard,” he said.

Once settled in the wagon bed next to Csevet, Maia said quietly, “We could have afforded the fee he first named with our sister’s purse. Was it that unreasonable?”

“It was, we might say, the very upper limits of reasonable for the load. We’ve bargained fare with enough wagoners in our time to know. And we’re not sure how much further the archduchess’s money will take us. Two days’ lodging and food for nine set us back quite a bit — costs have gone up for merchants in the wake of the unrest, and some of them are gouging refugees to boot — and we still have the boat fare to pay. Presumably the Adremaza will take us in, but if for any reason that plan goes awry ... Cetho, Serenity, is a costly city.”

The hour’s ride was cold, despite the heat of twenty-one people crowded under the canvas, and bumpy to boot. The children seemed delighted by the novelty of it all, but every jolt of the wagon seemed to go straight up Maia’s spine. Given how much less stony the ground was here than in the badlands to the north, he wondered whether the driver were taking far less care than he ought, out of pique at having been bargained down.

When the wagon stopped, it was quite short, throwing each passenger forward into the side of the passenger seated afore them. Grunts of surprise and annoyance filled the air. Then the canvas was pulled back, flooding the wagon bed with weak early sunlight, and the driver said, “This is Moraitho. You can all catch a steamboat here.”

A steamboat was already pulled up alongside the quay, set to depart in two hours’ time. Baleär went to speak to the first mate, then returned to the rough wooden windbreak under which the rest of them huddled. “Their passenger fares are somewhat steep, Serenity, as the value of this port has risen while Ezho’s is frozen over. On the positive side of the ledger, they’ve a need for longshoremen, stokers, and firemen. Many workmen have abandoned the rivers for overland hauling jobs until the ice breaks and melts. The eleven of us, and Etris an he like, can put in a few hours’ work instead of using up your money.”

“So can we, for that matter,” Maia said.

Baleär stared at him incredulously. “Serenity?”

Maia stared back without expression. “We shoveled snow and dung in Celvaz, Sergeant. We can’t imagine that shoveling coal or carrying cargo would be that much more onerous.”

“We cannot let you do that, Serenity!” Beshelar exclaimed. “It _is_ far more onerous. You could be injured — and it is highly unfitting, to boot!”

“It is our decision, not yours,” Maia said coldly, unwilling to give in before his new sworn men.

His First Soldier-Nohecharis spluttered indignantly until Cala put a hand on his shoulder. “It may be our best option collectively, Beshelar, given our financial straits. Might we suggest you offer your labor as well, and keep close by His Serenity? We ourself would, but we couldn’t do the job without a maz, and we’d rather not risk discovery nor expend the required mazeise energy.”

He deemed Telimezh’s companions safe enough undisguised for now, but cast a new disguising maz over the rest of them, himself included. Then Maia, Csevet, Taris, Beshelar, Telimezh, and the former guardsmen filed out of the windbreak to approach the first mate, who ended up taking them all on as workers. Cala, Valto, and the children hung back for the moment; they would shortly thereafter pose as a family seeking passage in the hold, by far the cheapest option for those who could not pay the fee in labor.

The next four hours were a blur of exhaustion, pain, and filth. Maia and his fellow new hires spent the first ninety minutes carrying countless crates and other items up and down the boarding plank. Although his back and shoulders were far stronger than they had been when Csevet first found him at Azharee, he had exercised them very little since re-encountering his First Nohecharei, and before long they began to protest. He grit his teeth and ignored the strain.

Then the whistle blew, the first mate turned them over to the engineer, and the engineer herded them all down to the boiler room. The next two and a half hours were, without question, far worse than all the weeks of shoveling dung at Parugo and the loading of the steamboat combined.

The boiler room seethed with heat, and not the soft, comforting kind of the Caireinazhaio. A great woodpile stood amid the furnaces that heated the water in the boiler’s gigantic pair of copper tubes. Atop the woodpile stood a man who was bare to the waist, his face, ears, chest, and back streaked with coal dust and sweat. That man, the engineer brusquely explained, was the lead “fireman.” He was tasked with throwing down logs to other firemen, who would hand them to the men who stoked the furnaces. The stokers would throw logs and shovel coal into the furnaces, then poke the flames with long iron rods. Maia, Csevet, and the most slightly built of the guardsmen were assigned fireman duties, with the rest ordered to stoke the fires.

As soon as the engineer departed, the lead fireman began to sing. A few of the former guardsmen seemed to know the words, and they joined in:

> _‘Twas on a frosty morning,_  
>  _The captain, he did say,_  
>  _“Shove it deep inside her, boys,_  
>  _Shove it all the way._  
>  _Get her hot and steaming, boys,_  
>  _As hot as hot can be,_  
>  _And we’ll drive her down from Celvaz_  
>  _To the coast of the Goblin Sea.”_

They had all shed their cloaks, hats, and gloves before even approaching the boiler room. Within ten minutes they were all, even Beshelar, stripped to the waist as well. Still the sweat soaked their hair and ran down their ears, faces, and torsos, and coal dust stuck in the sweat and scratched and burned in their throats and lungs. The room had already been acrid with coal and unwashed flesh, and now the stench waxed even stronger.

But no man ceased to work except to swill water from a nearby jug or to pass it in the chamberpot in the corner. If the furnaces were not constantly fed, the engineer had explained, the boat would come to a halt. Nor did the singing once cease, despite the foul and suffocating air all around them. The refrain with which the lead fireman had begun was the least obscene part of the song; the verses were far more scabrous. He would sing them solo, the other men joining in on the refrain with laughter, more and more of them taking it up the first several times until all of them knew the words. Even Beshelar sang it along with the rest.

Sweltering, grimy, half-naked, sore of muscle and of lung, Maia was hard pressed to find the modesty to blush at the lyrics. He joined in on the refrain as best he could; he had never learned to sing, and he was glad that the voices of the others disguised how poorly he could carry a tune. What little he could hear of Csevet’s singing voice sounded light and lilting, but like Maia’s it was drowned out by those of the military men. Though none of them would be taking the stage at the Zhaö Opera House any time soon, they were all more or less on key. He took mental refuge from the rigors of the work in the harmony of their voices, as well as of their movements, frankly impressed at how the massive muscles of the stokers’ chests and backs rippled under the cascades of sweat as they dumped shovelful after heavy shovelful of coal and threw log after log into the furnaces’ fiery red maws. He took refuge, too, in his hopefully discreet glances at Csevet, whose leaner musculature worked just as hard as he hefted log after log from lead fireman to stoker.

When the whistle finally blew, it was a wordless hymn in Maia’s ears. A moment later, the engineer threw open the boiler room door and bawled, “Cetho, boys! Abovedecks, all of you!”


	12. The Mazan’theileian

The work was not yet done. There was cargo to be unloaded and yet more to be brought aboard for later unloading at Zhaö, Cairado, smaller river towns, the northern shore of the Chadevan Sea, and ports of call beyond. But, to Maia’s vast relief, for these duties the first mate took on the knot of men who’d been lingering on the dock seeking wages and passage themselves. He called for the quartermaster, who settled up briskly with Maia and his fellow workers. Their collective pay did not exactly replenish the original contents of Vedero’s purse, but Maia caught a look of relief in Csevet’s eyes nonetheless.

They found Cala, Valto, and the children standing just beyond the dock, with nobody else in their immediate vicinity. Five noses wrinkled at their approach, Mireän looked suddenly as though she were about to vomit, and Ino declared, “Ugh, you all _smell!”_ Her older sister, despite her tinge of green, gave her a light slap of reproach on the shoulder. A chuckle rippled through the group of men who’d worked the boiler room, and Maia allowed himself that brief levity as well.

Cala waved a hand. The washing maz circulated among the workers, invisibly spinning stale sweat and coal dust out of their clothes and hair, off their skins, into the icy air over the river.

“Many thanks, Cala Athmaza,” Maia said. While it was not his first washing maz, he marveled nonetheless that none of them offended the nose any longer, and that he was no longer shivering in clammy clothes but quite snug against the biting wind off the water. Then he noticed that Cala’s color was not good and he was leaning somewhat on Valto’s arm. “Are you ailing?”

“We apologize, Serenity. We’ve been casting one disguising or washing maz after another since Ezho.”

“And walking long distances in the cold, so soon after your recuperation, maza,” Beshelar said disapprovingly. “The hold of the ship could not have been so warm, either.”

“It was not,” Cala admitted. He switched from formal to plural, then back again: “The odd maz was not so difficult, Serenity, when our numbers were fewer and there were not so many strangers about. But the constant working of magic upon nearly two dozen people has begun to take a toll on us.”

“Oh, dear,” Maia said, berating himself internally for not considering that mazei were mortal and had their limits. “Will you be able to manage a disguising maz for all of us?”

“He need not, Serenity,” Baleär said. “The twelve of us, and Merei Rishonar and Aisava if they care to join us, can take lodgings nearby.”

Maia frowned. “Will any of you be recognized?”

“We doubt it, Serenity. Guardsmen have our — their — own taverns and other gathering places at court. They are not encouraged to mingle overmuch with the general public, for reasons of both safety and dignity.”

“Unfortunately,” Csevet said, “we have enough contacts in all parts of Cetho that it is probably unwise for us to join the guardsmen.” His tone was mild, but there was tension in his features, and he seemed ill at ease standing undisguised so close to the dock.

“We’ll go with the guardsmen, Serenity,” Taris said. “Hithera, mind thou His Serenity and his other men while I’m gone.”

Hithera looked disappointed. “May’nt I come with you all?”

“Gods, _no,_ boy,” Baleär said vehemently, a hint of shock in his voice. “Cetho outside the Untheileneise Court is no place for a michen from the back of beyond. It’s barely meet for the michen who were born in these quarters.” Hithera shrank back a little, his ears flagging. Maia put his hand comfortingly on the boy’s shoulder, and Hithera relaxed. “It’s no place for a country woman, either,” Baleär added, looking at Valto.

“We’re sure we can defend ourself well enough,” Valto said, stone-faced. “We see no reason we cannot rent a room and take a job in a kitchen somewhere.”

“No offense, Min Dichin,” Baleär said more diplomatically. “But a bow is not a weapon well suited to the confines of a city.”

Valto remained implacable. “We are armed with more than a bow, Sergeant.”

“Min Dichin…” Baleär grimaced. “We are not certain you could find sufficiently safe lodgings. And you do not know this city.”

“We agree with Sergeant Baleär, Min Dichin,” Csevet said. “If we all had more funds between us, it might be possible, but …” He grimaced as well, then looked at Cala. “Min Dichin and Hithera will not need a maz cast over them, as they are strangers to Cetho, but the remaining six of us will. Will you be able to manage this, Cala Athmaza?”

“We should be able to, yes, Mer Aisava,” Cala said, the weariness in his voice belying his words. “Hithera, please stand aside; Dach’osmichen Mireän and Ino, please stand next to His Serenity.”

As soon as the children had moved into place, Cala waved his hand once more — and stumbled. “Cala!” Maia exclaimed.

Valto caught Cala smoothly, but her brows shot up. Csevet, even tenser than before, moved swiftly toward them and took Cala’s other arm. Braced between the two of them Cala righted himself. His face was the color of old cheese, and he looked more ill now than he had a moment after he’d cast the washing maz.

“Cala?” Telimezh said worriedly. “Should we remain with Lieutenant Beshelar to guard His Serenity?”

 _“No,”_ Cala said, equal parts vehemence and tremor. Telimezh flinched, and Cala looked abashed. “We apologize, Telimezh. We have no doubt of your ability as a nohecharis. But we’d need to extend the maz over you in that case, and … we are unable to do so at this moment. Our best option remains for the eight of us to continue on to the Mazan’theileian and for the rest of you to seek out lodgings and dock work for the time being. It may be for no more than a day or two in any event.”

“Understood,” Telimezh said. He sounded uncertain, but he was not going to contradict a First Nohecharis nor second-guess a maza.

“How will you know where we are staying or working, maza?” Baleär asked.

“By scrying. It shouldn’t be difficult, as you’ll be within a limited geographic range. If we’re indisposed, the Adremaza or another maza will look for you. Then a novice or servant will approach one of you about, and we quote, ‘the matter of Ezho.’”

“Have we enough funds to hire a carriage for eight, Csevet?” Maia asked. “Or… perhaps a wagon?”

Csevet’s mouth pulled. “Eight people piled into a wagon to travel within Cetho, rather than to leave it, might arouse suspicions. A carriage would be best, Serenity. We and Min Dichin can pose as the children’s parents once more, sitting separately from you and the First Nohecharei. Unfortunately that leaves almost no money left over for lodgings for the guardsmen.”

“That’s fine,” Baleär said, shaking his mustaches. “It’s not even noon, and we’ve heard that Cetho wants for labor in the wake of the unrest. We’re sure we can find some work for the afternoon, and we should have enough coin for, if naught else, a flophouse.” Maia cringed inwardly at the word, but he reminded himself that Telimezh and the former guardsmen had been living little better in Ezho, and Taris had grown up in a cabin with a dirt floor in the frigid Osreialhalans. And as Cala had said, it would be for no more than a night, at most two.

“Cala Athmaza, are you certain of our welcome at the Mazan’theileian?” Csevet asked.

“We are, Mer Aisava,” Cala said as firmly as he could manage.

“Then we shall obtain a carriage for us. In the meantime …” Csevet looked pointedly at the guardsmen. “… shall we all clasp arms and bid one another good day?”

Baleär and Telimezh both started slightly, and Maia realized they would have otherwise bowed to him. Not an optimal farewell gesture for deflecting attention. Telimezh, the guardsmen, and Taris each clasped arms with Csevet. Then Maia gave them a broad smile and offered each of the thirteen his right arm. Each man gripped it, tentatively at first, then with more enthusiasm when Maia did not shrink from his touch. The eyes of most of them glistened in the late-morning sun.

When they had finished clasping arms with Cala and Beshelar as well, a sharp whistle from the curbside spun Maia’s head about. Csevet stood there with his back toward them and his right arm raised, and a sizable carriage was drawing up to the curb. At his side stood Valto and the three children.

As Csevet spoke with the driver, presumably bargaining again, Beshelar inclined his head at Maia. Maia gave him and Cala a curt nod. They strode up to the curb, Maia keeping an anxious eye on Cala’s gait. “Might we share your carriage with you, sir?” Beshelar asked Csevet.

“Of course,” Csevet replied. The driver eyed the three newcomers briefly but did not object.

Within the carriage, Csevet settled himself on the same bench as Maia and the nohecharei, with Valto and the children opposite them. “We told them to bring us to court,” Csevet said after the driver had shut the doors on them. “To an entrance not far from that connected to the Mazan’theileian. We’d fain draw as little suspicion down upon the Athmaz’are as possible.”

“A wise idea,” Cala said. He did not seem wholly himself again, but neither did he seem as ill as he had a short while before. “Serenity, you, we, and Lieutenant Beshelar should arrive there first. Mer Aisava, Min Dichin, you and the children should let ten or fifteen minutes elapse before joining us. A family of five will draw less suspicion than a group of three men, we believe. Go to the main entrance, beneath Usharsu’s Ladder. Whoever’s at the door, even a novice, will see through the disguising maz, but they’ll understand that discretion is called for and they’ll know to bring you to the Adremaza.”

“‘Usharsu’s Ladder’?” Maia echoed.

“We’ll show you, Serenity,” Cala said.

The ride took about fifteen minutes in the midday traffic. The girls sat primly on the bench next to Valto, hands clasped. Hithera alternated staring out the windows with fidgeting; he seemed as confined as he had in Ezho. Maia hoped there was a safely enclosed space at the Mazan’theileian where he could work off his energy. Or that the mazei could somehow find him an outlet for it.

Before the driver stopped, Beshelar and Csevet divided up the fare from Vedero’s purse; when the driver opened the door, they each paid him separately. Csevet handed Valto and each girl down to the driver. Hithera leapt down by himself, eyes wide. Maia and the nohecharei each climbed out on their own.

“So this is court,” Valto said, tilting her head back as the driver pulled away. She looked considerably less excited than Hithera, but impressed nonetheless.

“Just a small part of court, and nowhere near the busiest parts,” Csevet said. “Shall we all have a bit of a stroll, my dear ones?” He purposefully did not look at Maia or the nohecharei now. Maia, turning his back to Csevet’s party, nodded again to Cala and Beshelar. They flanked him as they walked in the opposite direction, but for all the attention they were paid by passersby they might as well have been a trio of servants heading toward the kitchens of the Mazan’theileian.

The building housing the Athmaz’are stood apart from the Untheileneise Court, connected to it by a covered bridge. From its intricate stonework, Maia guessed the bridge had been built in the reign of Edretanthiar III. As they passed it Cala said, “That bridge, Serenity, is Usharsu’s Ladder, commissioned by Usharsu Adremaza. Novices making their way through a mazeise education say they are ‘climbing the Ladder,’ and those who are faring poorly in their coursework say they’re ‘falling off the Ladder.’”

Maia made a quiet noise of acknowledgment. He supposed he should take more interest in such history, the history of his court, but he had no attention for it. Just now he felt precisely as he had when he and Csevet had left Celvaz and re-entered the Ethuveraz: as if soldiers stood amassed atop every structure about them, aiming thickets of arrows and spears directly at Maia’s and his companions’ necks and throats.

Cala did not bring them to the massive entrance at ground level that was sheltered by Usharsu’s Ladder. He walked them around to a narrow side door, deeply recessed, and ushered Maia and Beshelar under the overhang. Maia’s tension eased somewhat as he slipped into its shadow, broad and deep even so close to noon. Then Cala passed his hand over the doorknob, eliciting soft snicks and clicks from within the mechanism of the lock. Maia and Beshelar both gave him anxious looks, but other than his grimace Cala seemed unaffected enough.

Maia, on the other hand, could have fainted with relief when the door closed behind them all. He felt Beshelar’s broad hand on his shoulder, and he bit his lip and forced himself to stand up straight. “We are fine,” he said quietly. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Cala led them down a long, dim corridor that smelled of dust, damp, ozone, and sweat. Numerous doors flanked it at short intervals, marked only by numbers. No sounds issued from behind them, and no one seemed to be wandering the hallway. Maia wondered if this section of the Mazan’theileian were a dormitory for novices. Eventually Cala turned a corner into a broader hallway that smelled and looked cleaner, if it were not much brighter. Maia and Beshelar followed him around various subsequent turns until they emerged into a high-vaulted stone corridor daylit by long, narrow windows just beneath the ceiling. Cala stopped at a heavy door, its wood deeply weathered and bound in iron; Maia was taken with the fancy that it might have stood in place for a millennium or more.

He waited for Cala to knock, but the maza merely stood silently before the door. From its hinges came a great, deep groaning as it opened inward. On its threshold, his face far more lined than Maia remembered it as being, stood Sehalis Adremaza. “Come in, and quickly,” he said sharply. They obeyed with alacrity, and the room beyond — windowless but bright with both hearth flame and gaslight — shook around them as the door thudded back into place.

The Adremaza turned and bowed as deeply to Maia as one could short of full prostration. “Serenity. We cannot express how profoundly grateful to the gods we are to see that you are alive and well. You need not fear attack or eavesdropping in this room, or in others we have set aside for you, as they have been well warded.”

“Adremaza,” Maia said. “We thank you for your hospitality. But we beg it of you not merely for ourself and our First Nohecharei, we must warn you.”

“Yes, we know, Serenity,” the Adremaza said. “We have been scrying, and we are aware that five others will soon be joining you here, including the daughters of Princess Sheveän. And that Cala Athmaza will need to rest and recover.”

“You heard our conversation at the dock?” Maia asked. He did not think Cala looked as sickly at the moment as he had earlier.

“We did not listen in, no, Serenity. Mazeise ethics bid that scrying be as limited as possible, to shelter the privacy of those scried upon. But it would be plainly evident to any other maza standing before him that Cala’s energies have been severely taxed.”

“Serenity,” came a hoarse, deep voice — a familiar voice — from elsewhere in the room.

Maia, realizing he had not so much as looked about, gave a start. “Mer Celehar?”

Thara Celehar threw himself face down onto the shabby red carpet. “Serenity… we are ever so sorry. We have failed you profoundly.”

Maia thought of Telimezh at The Spoonbill in Ezho. _Merciful goddesses, not again._ Of Celehar he demanded, “How, exactly?” The brusqueness of his own voice took him aback; he disregarded the startled looks from the mazei and Beshelar.

Not raising his head from the floor, Celehar said, “Dach’osmer Tethimar was in league with the airship workers who destroyed the _Wisdom of Choharo._ Had we learned the truth earlier than we did, we might have been able to stop him. And we fear our investigations may have driven him to take the risk of a coup, rather than be exposed for his misdeeds.”

Maia’s stomach roiled. How many deaths could be laid at the doorstep of House Tethimada? He forced himself to focus on the man abasing himself before him. “Mer Celehar, how on earth could you have prevented him from taking action? You had not the social standing nor the resources of Dach’osmer Tethimar even before he declared himself regent, nor anywhere near the evidence to bring him to justice. Nor do you know that he had not planned the coup well in advance of your arrival in Amalo. We order you to rise and cease with this needless self-recrimination.”

Celehar got to his feet, ears still low and a stricken expression on his face. “Serenity, we had just learned the truth of what happened to your kinsmen, written you a letter, and sought out the Vigilant Brotherhood for their assistance when news of the coup came in from Cetho.”

Maia shook his head. “You went quite above and beyond what you were asked to do, of your own initiative. We understand you may feel horrified at the timing, but none of what happened is your fault, and if you are lost in self-reproach you will not be of much further use to us.”

Celehar still looked unhappy, but he bowed deeply and said, “Yes, Serenity.”

“May we ask why we find you here, in the Mazan’theileian? The clergy is not the Athmaz’are, nor the Athmaz’are the clergy. And for that matter, why you returned to Cetho at all, not knowing we would be here?”

“We had another dream of Ulis, Serenity,” Celehar said.

“Ulis is generous with his visions, in sooth,” Maia said drily.

Celehar flushed. “To be precise, Serenity, Ulis does not grant visions. He grants clarity, rather like Cstheio Caireizhasan — he is Lord of Darkness, but he may shine light into the darkness if he wishes. If in the waking world one’s mind is full of bits and pieces that one cannot put together, or one cannot decide on the right course of action, a dream of Ulis may provide enlightenment.”

“We see,” Maia said. “And what were the bits and pieces you were attempting to reconcile, Mer Celehar?”

“In our case, Serenity, it was a matter of being unsure how to proceed. We had heard various rumors over the last month or more in the hangars of the Amal-Athamareise Airship Company. Such as, for example, that you had been spotted in Celvaz.”

Beshelar drew in a hissing breath. Maia felt a lurch in his breast. “Go on.”

“Then it was said that you, and someone who looked like Mer Aisava, were seen in a small riverside town far to the north and west. There were reports of you in the on the Evressai Steppes, too, and in the various western factory towns, and in the borderlands near Barizhan, and at the Corat’ Dav Arhos where your grandfather the Great Avar had granted you asylum. Most recently, a goblin was said to be seen in Ezho, leading a company of elves and goblins with military bearing. We were unsure how much to credence any of these rumors, or …” Celehar paused, and his voice was sharper when he spoke next. “… the rumor concerning the one maza-nohecharis who remained at court. Which, unfortunately, seems more and more likely to be true.”

A queasy tension took hold of Maia, and he was glad he was not looking at Cala at that moment. “And what is the nature of that rumor?”

All guilt vanished from Celehar’s face as his eyes and mouth went hard and his ears began to flatten. He seemed about to speak again, but Sehalis Adremaza held up his hand, gesturing for Celehar to wait. With his other hand he gestured in the direction of the great door, and it groaned open on its hinges again. Before it stood Csevet, Valto, the children, and a novice. They entered, and there was the usual round of introductions, bows, and arm clasps. Maia silently cursed Csevet’s timing, then himself for his impatience.

The novice led the children away to warded rooms and courtyard where they could dine, play, and rest in safety and secrecy. Once the door had boomed shut again, the Adremaza gave Celehar a grim look and said, “Mer Celehar, before the arrival of Mer Aisava and the others, you were about to inform His Serenity of a rumor concerning Dazhis Athmaza.”

Celehar’s lips drew back from his teeth. “The rumor, Serenity, is that Dazhis Athmaza obtains his exceptional powers through the practice of necromancy.”

Behind Maia there were caught breaths, choked sounds, and one soft profanity. He felt his insides turn to ice, and he thought of Cala’s words in the stone shack: _There are stakes in this matter that go well beyond the throne of the Ethuveraz._

“Go on, Mer Celehar,” he said.

“As we said, we did not know whether to credence this rumor, either. As _you_ said, Serenity, we are a cleric, not a maza. Witnesses for the Dead do not traffic in magic; we regard our ability to speak to the deceased not as an inherent power but as an honor bestowed by Ulis.” He drew a deep breath. “Necromancy, Serenity, is a grave offense against Ulis. It robs the dead of their rightful rest — it is, if you will, a sort of murder in reverse. And it puts into mortal hands powers that were never intended for mortal beings.”

“Adremaza,” Maia asked, “how would Dazhis have learned this … art?”

“There is, Serenity, a Forbidden Library in the Mazan’theileian,” Sehalis Adremaza said. “It houses mazeise scholarship that has been purposefully suppressed: none of it is taught, as it is considered too dangerous to be entrusted to nearly any mortal mind. The Athmaz’are has chosen not to destroy those books, scrolls, and other papers in the event they may one day be critical to the survival of the Ethuveraz. But the Library is well hidden, well locked, and well warded by a very few mazei who take dual death-pledges to guard its secrets yet never study those secrets themselves. It would take a very powerful, very ambitious, and very amoral dachenmaza to foil its defenses.”

“Which, of course, perfectly describes Dazhis Athmaza,” Maia said in disgust.

“Indeed. We do not know if he infiltrated the physical space of the Library in person, or he was able to read and duplicate the relevant material from afar. However, we are certain he has studied the suppressed treatise of Chathura the Necromancer — the same studied by Orava the Usurper.”

“Orava,” Cala now said, “left the Athmaz’are to be trained as a prelate of Ulis, and thus as a Witness for the Dead, so he might put this knowledge to practical use. Dazhis did not do so, to the best of our knowledge,” and here Cala indicated himself plus the rest of the Athmaz’are. “But when we were novices together, he evinced a strong interest in the rites of Ulis. No one thought much of it at the time.”

“Nor would they have had reason to,” the Adremaza added. “The Athmaz’are teaches theology and religious ritual as well as magic, both to provide a well-rounded education and because some forms of magic require invocations or sacrifice to the gods. And some mazei, including novices, are pious. Meanwhile, necromancy has almost never been practiced and the stigma against it is extremely strong among mazei and clerics alike.

“We suspect that on at least a few of his sojourns to the Ulimeire of Cetho,” the Adremaza continued, “Dazhis similarly infiltrated the private library of the Hierophant and learned far more than he was privileged to.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds. Maia could read the guilt in the lines of his face, as he had earlier in those of Celehar’s. And he recalled that the Adremaza had been the one to pick Dazhis, as well as Cala, for Maia’s maza-nohecharei.

He turned back to Celehar. “So Ulis granted you a dream.”

Celehar nodded. “Yes, Serenity. We had been unsure what to do since news of the Winternight coup arrived in Amalo by airship the morning after. Briefly, there is a group of airship workers who have become drunk on dangerous political ideology, and three in particular whom we believe created and planted the incendiary device that caused the _Wisdom of Choharo_ to explode. We can understand the anger among this group, as the Amal-Athamareise Airship Company uses its laborers quite callously, but of course we cannot countenance the path of action they chose to take. In addition, shortly before the recent marriage of the Prince of Thu-Athamar to the eldest Dach’osmin Tethimin, men wearing the Tethimadeise device had repeatedly toured the hangars, where they asked questions of workers and were said to have been quite free with their money. We suspect they put the three workers in question up to the task.”

Maia felt queasy again. “And those three workers? Are they in custody?”

“They were,” Celehar said, his voice sharpening once more.

“‘Were’?”

“The Vigilant Brotherhood arrested them, Serenity. On the morning after Winternight, we and several Brothers were to deliver them to justice in Cetho. But when we were told of the second coup, we feared to bring ourself to the attention of Dach’osmer Tethimar. The Vigilants insisted we stay with them, to avoid retaliation from any of the prisoners’ comrades. As for the prisoners themselves, it was unclear how to proceed with them, other than to keep them detained for the interim… until a week after Winternight, when they were found mysteriously dead in their cells.” There was a faint, ironic emphasis on the word _mysteriously._ “The mystery was solved when the Brothers summoned a local doctor, who merely sniffed at the corpses’ mouths and declared they all reeked of _ulidedarei.”_

“Grapes of Ulis. How convenient,” Beshelar said with a sharpness to match Celehar’s. “An they did not see who poisoned their food or drink, they could not have given that person’s name to a Witness for the Dead.”

“Indeed, Lieutenant,” Celehar said. “We were willing to Witness for them to see what they could tell us, but the Vigilants told us we must leave Amalo immediately: the infiltration meant we were no longer safe, even among them. Coincidentally, we had had the dream of Ulis the preceding night.”

“So you returned to Cetho — into the den of the wolf, as it were,” Maia said.

Celehar gave Maia a crooked smile. “In sooth, Serenity, the agents of House Tethimada could have run us to earth anywhere in the Ethuveraz, and elsewhere too. But in Cetho, we sensed we would have allies. We could but board the very next airship southwest and pray to Ulis that those agents would not be expecting us to return. We sought out the Adremaza as soon as we landed. He vouched for the rumors we had heard of Dazhis Athmaza, was deeply shocked by the fruits of our investigations, and offered us maz-warded shelter in the Mazan’theileian. We owe him a great debt.”

“Do not count yourself fortunate yet, Mer Celehar,” the Adremaza said sternly. “Our mazei will very likely require your assistance, and we cannot guarantee that any of you will survive what is to come.”

Celehar’s vivid eyes were ice-cold. “Trust us, Adremaza: we are quite eager to render said assistance, regardless of its results,” he said quietly.

Maia suppressed a shiver at something in Thara Celehar’s voice. Though he was not sure what a disgraced prelate and Witness for the Dead would be able to do against one like Dazhis Athmaza, he was glad that this small, stubborn, and self-possessed man was not his enemy.

“What other mazei, Adremaza, besides ourself?” Cala asked, his voice also growing sharp. “Kiru Athmaza, we take it. But who else?”

“Zhadra Athmaza has promised his help,” the Adremaza said. “He is powerful for one who is not dachenmaza, Serenity. He is not a Witness for the Dead, either, but the intersection of mazeise and Witnessing powers is one of his areas of study.”

“Are there not enough dachenmazei left?” Maia asked, his chest tightening with apprehension.

“There are never many dachenmazei at any given time,” the Adremaza said. “After the deaths of your father’s maza-nohecharei, Serenity, and the betrayal of Dazhis, Cala and Kiru Athmaza are the only ones left. And … there is also a novice, whose gifts promise to match or surpass those of Hanevis one day.”

“You would pit a novice against a necromancer?” Cala did not quite exclaim the words, but his inflection rose sharply on the last word, and his eyes were wide behind his spectacles. Maia noted he had not addressed his superior by title, as was respectful.

“What choice do we have?” Sehalis Adremaza snapped, his ears starting to go back. Then he stopped short and seemed to wrest control of his ire. “Serenity, Cala, Lieutenant Beshelar, Mer Celehar: please follow us and we will make introductions. Mer Aisava and Min Dichin, if you would make yourselves at ease, we will rejoin you shortly. If you require anything, clap twice, and a novice will attend upon you.”

Maia, Cala, Beshelar, and Celehar followed the Adremaza out of the room and further down the stone hallway. Perhaps halfway down it, he stopped before a rather smaller door, which swung open with relative quiet.

Two figures stood within the small room. The first was a maza in a robe as shabby as Cala’s, shorter and slighter in build than even Thara Celehar, with the long white braid of a scholar. His eyes were light-green, his nose rather beaky but his chin softly rounded. Maia’s gaze dropped lower before he could stop himself, and then he blinked and stared.

“Maza,” he said. “Or should that be maz _o?”_

The woman bowed low to him. “Serenity. We are Kiru Athmaza, and we are entirely at your service.” Her grave voice was nowhere near deep enough to be mistaken for a man’s. She smiled at Cala and held out her arm. “Good to see you again and in ... relatively good health, Cala.”

“And you, Kiru,” Cala said, returning the smile with a bit of rue in it and clasping arms with her. “This is our fellow First Nohecharis, Lieutenant Deret Beshelar.”

“Lieutenant.” She gave Beshelar a quarter-bow, which he returned. “Mer Celehar and we have met already.” The two of them exchanged brief bows as well.

Then Maia’s eyes fell upon the figure behind her — dark-skinned, black-haired, goblin-featured, even shorter, and clad in a shabby robe of linen that was undyed except for its blue border. A novice’s robe, he guessed. The build it adorned, even slighter than Kiru’s, suggested that this was yet another mazo.

The girl gave him her own deep bow. “Serenity,” she said, her accent that of the Thu-Tetareise borderlands; Maia guessed her to be no older than Idra. “We are Nistho Athmaza.” She turned to Cala and bowed somewhat less deeply to him, then sketched the same quarter-bow to Beshelar and Celehar that Kiru had given them. “Cala Athmaza, Lieutenant Beshelar, we are pleased to make your acquaintances as well. And greetings again, Mer Celehar.”

“The pleasure is ours,” Cala said in the formal. “But we would know something of your skill, Nistho, if you are to fight alongside us. The Adremaza says you have dachenmazeise powers; how have they manifested?”

“Tell him what you did the other day,” the Adremaza said with a sharpness that startled Maia.

Nistho bit her lower lip. “Er. We… threw another novice up into the high branches of a tree. With a maz.” Cala blinked.

“And what else did you do to him?” the Adremaza said sternly.

“Um. Called a crow over to tear out a few clumps of his hair?” Though her inflection had risen, it was not truly a question. She stared down at her booted feet while she shuffled them. Beshelar’s brows rose. The barest hint of smile on Kiru Athmaza’s face did not escape Maia’s notice at all.

“We presume you had a quarrel of some sort with the young man?” Cala’s face was mostly composed, but there was a twitch at one corner of his mouth.

Nistho’s face, a few shades of grey darker than Maia’s, turned indigo. “He … he’d put his hands under our robe, without our say-so, and wouldn’t stop even when we yelled at him and hit him.” Beshelar’s ears went back; Celehar’s brows rose slightly.

“Oh,” Cala said with a shrug. “So he’d earned it, then. Good work.” Nistho seemed to nearly swoon with relief, and she beamed at him. Maia, who refrained from voicing his agreement with Cala, thought the smile exceedingly charming.

“Cala Athmaza,” Sehalis Adremaza said sharply. “We cannot have novices attempting to kill one another!”

“But evidently you _can_ have them taking liberties with one another,” Maia said with a fierce spurt of anger. He thought again of Milu, Csevet, and Idra.

The Adremaza flushed to the tips of his ears. “Well… we do not encourage that, either, Serenity. However, we do think Nistho’s reaction was a bit excessive. Cheina Athmaza required a great many stitches afterward.”

“Which will hopefully have caused the lesson she dealt him to sink in,” Cala said astringently. Sehalis Adremaza bristled, but he said nothing in reply.

Cala then turned back to Nistho. “So, other than provide much-needed correctives to the behavior of presumptuous young men, what can you do?”

She took a deep breath. “Well. We’re good at starting fires, summoning lightballs, and commanding animals. Birds, especially. We can cast a serviceable disguising maz. We can do basic scrying, though we could be better at it for longer distances. We’ve no skill with healing at all. We can sense ley lines, and we can pull the power out of one, but we’re still learning to handle it without getting energy burns.” Cala was nodding along, and Maia thought he looked impressed. “And, er...” Nistho bit her lip again. “We can work a blood maz.”

Cala drew in a sharp breath, and the Adremaza’s ears went back once more. Nistho hastily added, “Only for protection. Not for cursing anyone or anything.”

“We did not know this,” the Adremaza said, and he sounded genuinely appalled. “We know you intend no evil, Nistho, but you are very young, very inexperienced, and very powerful — and blood is an _extremely_ potent mazeise medium.”

“Indeed,” Cala muttered. “We’ve not worked a blood maz since our novitiate, and when we did it was under close supervision. We could do so again an the need arose, but … it is not something to be undertaken lightly.”

“And remember, Nistho, that Cala Athmaza is capable of a revethmaz,” the Adremaza added.

“We’re sorry,” Nistho said, looking anxious again. “We thought it would be all right.”

“You will not be punished for it, as you did not understand the risks, and no harm came of it,” the Adremaza said. “But we forbid you to do so again except under the strict supervision of Cala, Kiru, or Zhadra Athmaza.”

“Yes, Adremaza.” The words were obedient, as was her tone, but there was a glint of frustration in the girl’s orange eyes. Though Cala and the Adremaza were undoubtedly right, Maia could not help but feel sympathy for her.

“How much has Sehalis Adremaza explained to you, Nistho, about … what is toward, and what is to be done about it?” he asked her.

Nistho took a deep breath. “Kiru explained most of it to us, Serenity. Dazhis Athmaza — your former Second Maza-Nohecharis — he’s obtained powers that rightly belong only to Ulis. Either by killing people or raising them from the dead, then pulling Ulis’s powers through them as weapons against the living.” Her face turned the color of spent ash in a hearth, her throat worked visibly, and her ears drooped. “So Cala and Kiru and Zhadra-Teacher and we, and Mer Celehar, we’re going to put our powers together to try to overcome his.” She clasped her hands before her. They shook a little.

Maia felt an overpowering urge to reassure her. He thrust it away; it would be insulting to her. “Nistho Athmaza… I cannot order thee to do this, as I am no longer zhas and am not sure I will be again.” Her brows lifted slightly at his use of the informal. “Even an I were, I would not. Art not a nohecharo, nor a soldier, who has pledged thy life for thine emperor. Art not even an adult, legally permitted to swear thy life away. And knowest that couldst die in this attempt, as could thine elders.”

Her brows shot even higher as Maia got down on one knee before her to look her in the eye. Celehar and the Adremaza both stared at him. “Serenity!” Beshelar hissed, but Maia ignored him.

“Please, wilt do this?” he asked gently. “Not simply for me, but for all the Ethuveraz?”

Nistho swallowed. When she spoke again, her words were unsteady. “Yes, Serenity. I … I am afraid, I will not lie. But I am even more afraid of what will happen an we do not do this.”

“As am I,” Maia said, rising. “I thank thee, Nistho Athmaza.”

She nodded. Despite the mortal fear she still evinced, she was giving him a look of close consideration.

“Is there a plan, Adremaza?” Beshelar asked. “We would like to know the role those of us who are not mazei will play in it.”

“We have left the planning to Kiru and Zhadra Athmaza — and we apologize, Zhadra should have been here with us, but he has had double teaching duties this week thanks to another maza falling ill. He will join us all, we hope, at luncheon.”

“If we may, Adremaza?” Kiru asked. He nodded. She turned and addressed Maia and the First Nohecharei. “Our plan, on which we welcome any suggestions from His Serenity’s soldier-nohecharei, is to confront Dazhis five nights from now at the Midwinter Ball.”

A bitter frost crept over Maia’s scalp and down his spine. He had not truly given thought to how, or where, or when they would all confront Tethimar and Dazhis. And now there was an actual plan… and it would be carried out in just five nights.

_In five nights, I may die. And so may all who stand behind me._

“In the Untheileian?” Cala was asking. “It would be extremely dangerous, especially to innocent bystanders. It’s all hard surfaces, and there’s nowhere to hide.” These factors, Maia remembered from his childhood history books, had contributed greatly to the demise of Hanevis Athmaza at the hands of Orava the Usurper.

Kiru’s mouth quirked. “Oh, no. In the Untheileneise’meire. Eshevis Tethimar has insisted that, before the festivities begin, there will be an invocation there, performed by his cousin the Archprelate. We do not know the nature of the invocation.”

Maia’s heart sank. Had the Archprelate given Csevet the icon of Cstheio with Maia in mind, only in the end to ally with the rest of his kin? He had thought the man to be cut from a very different cloth. But, to most folk, blood and house were ultimately what mattered most.

“We’re not sure whether that’s better or worse,” Cala said. Though he seemed to be attempting a dry tone, his eyes were wide and his ears low. “With all the sarcophagi at Dazhis’s disposal?”

 _Drazhada sarcophagi._ Maia’s throat closed up and his heart began to pound.

“All he need do in the Untheileian is kill someone and channel Ulis’s powers through them — the same as Orava did,” Kiru said. “In the Untheileneise’meire, at least, we can take shelter behind the pillars, and His Serenity can be hidden on the floor of the emperor’s balcony. And there are other hiding places as well.”

Maia looked at Beshelar. He seemed to be thinking over what he had just heard, but there was no alarm in his expression. Though Maia still felt sick with dread, he seized upon this for whatever assurance he could wring from it.

“Kiru Athmaza,” Beshelar said, “is there a map of the Untheileneise’meire that can be used for reference? It would be greatly helpful.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, in fact there is. We can all look it over later on.”

***

Save for the children, they all took luncheon in the dining room of the Adremaza’s own private suite, around a long table. Sehalis Adremaza had had Kiru Athmaza maz-ward the entire suite, just as he had had her do for the rooms in which they had earlier conferred and those in which his guests would be staying. Nonetheless, Beshelar insisted on standing guard over Maia, postponing his own meal until Cala had finished his own.

An older woman with cropped hair waited on them, efficient and accommodating, professional and distant. Beshelar’s eyes followed her out of the room the first time she left it. “We beg your pardon, Adremaza, but do you trust that servant completely?” he asked after the door had closed behind her.

The Adremaza seemed at first as though he would bristle again. But he caught himself, and he replied, “Yes, we do, Lieutenant. Min Csolitin has been with us for more than fifteen years. We would lay not only money but our life on her probity.”

“Adremaza,” Beshelar said in acquiescence. He did not seem entirely convinced — after all, Maia thought, Sehalis Adremaza had been similarly sure of Dazhis’s probity — but he did not seem inclined to press the matter.

“Serenity,” the Adremaza said then, turning to Maia. “Shortly before luncheon, Min Csolitin brought us a message from another maza, who had news of your sister the archduchess.”

“Oh?” Maia said, almost lightheaded with a sudden rush of both hope and fear. The First Nohecharei and Csevet looked up as well, expressions tightly composed.

“She has fled to an estate in Thu-Tetar belonging to House Tativada, as she is a dear friend of a daughter of that house. Once we had heard that rumor, we scried for her there, and we found her, Dach’osmin Aizheän Tativin, and a few other young ladies happily toiling away in a large barn that had been turned over to mechanical projects.” The Adremaza gave a slight sniff, and his features pinched. “They were wearing workmen’s clothes, and they were absolutely _caked_ with grime and oil.”

“Thank all the gods,” Maia said fervently, closing his eyes and letting the relief wash over him.

“Indeed, Serenity,” Beshelar said with equal vehemence.

Then Maia remembered something, and he opened his eyes again. “Has there been any news of Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin, Adremaza? Was she also in that barn?”

The Adremaza shook his head. “We are sorry, Serenity, but no one has seen or heard from Dach’osmin Ceredin since the day after Winternight. Her parents are most distraught; Dach’osmerrem Ceredaran has lost considerable weight since her daughter’s disappearance.”

“We see,” Maia said. He fought down the sense of disappointment. Vedero was safe for now, and it was a piece of good news not to be belittled. He would continue to assume Dach’osmin Ceredin was alive and unharmed until he had heard otherwise.

The meal Min Csolitin served them was excellent, roast pheasant with sautéed amaranth leaf upon a bed of ocher rice. Nistho seemed overwhelmed by the luxury of it; Valto was effusive in her praise for the chef. Maia ate rotely, barely able to taste any of it. He glanced at Thara Celehar, sitting a few seats away on the opposite side of the table. The former prelate did not seem as sickly or malnourished as when he and Maia had last met; the rigors of laboring in a frigid hangar seemed to have both bolstered his strength and forced him to eat more regularly. Yet now he all but picked at his food, consuming only enough to not give offense, and pushing bits around on his plate to disguise his lack of appetite.

_Did Amalo cure thee of any taste might’st have had for luxury, Witness? Or is it that thou fearest death, consecrated though art to Ulis?_

_Or dost thou, too, fear something worse?_

As Min Csolitin returned to clear their plates, she said, “Adremaza, Zhadra Athmaza has arrived.”

“Please have him join us,” the Adremaza replied.

Her next return was with a short, balding elven man in early middle age, dressed in a shabby blue robe and with a courier’s leather pouch slung over his shoulder. She held a stack of dessert plates with fresh forks, while he held an iced Anverneise spice cake on a platter.

“We _can_ manage by ourself, maza,” Min Csolitin said firmly, but with a trace of a smile.

“It’s hardly a heroic effort, Min Csolitin,” the newcomer said. “One might even call it common courtesy.” He set the cake platter down in the middle of the table, then bowed deeply in Maia’s direction. “Greetings, Serenity, Adremaza, and all the rest of you. We’re Zhadra Athmaza. Sorry we missed luncheon; we’ve been flat out all week.”

“Zhadra-Teacher!” Nistho crowed, her eyes brightening. Zhadra grinned and winked at her.

“Have you eaten yet, Zhadra?” Kiru asked.

Zhadra waved dismissively. “Cheese and greens on bread. We’re quite fine, don’t need dessert, either.” He pulled up an extra chair from the wall and sat between Kiru and Nistho, tucking his robe beneath him and hanging the courier’s pouch over the back of his chair. “Now. How much have Kiru and the others told you of the essential plan, Serenity?”

“That it will be carried out in the Untheileneise’meire,” Maia said, “during some sort of invocation ceremony for Dach’osmer Tethimar.”

“Yes, Serenity.” As Min Csolitin cut the cake and set out slices on the dessert plates, Zhadra reached into the pouch and drew out a scroll tied with an undyed ribbon, which he spread out on the table with its bottom edge toward Maia. It was a map of the Untheileneise’meire. Off the great oval branched the six circles that were the satellite shrines. Dark shapes ringed its inner wall — the sarcophagi of Maia’s predecessors — and within that ring stood another of white circles, representing the pillars. Behind the rectangle of the altar was an open doorway leading into the Archprelatial offices. Slightly off to the side of the altar, the smaller rectangle of the emperor’s balcony hung between two pillars. At the opposite end of the vast space, the entrance doors were marked.

“The Untheileneise’meire provides us with a great many vantage points,” Zhadra said. “There are the pillars, of course. All the gaslights are mounted on pillars, which leaves everything behind them in the shadows after sunset. The crowd’s attention will be upon the altar. No one will be chatting or flirting behind the pillars, as that is highly improper in a sanctified space. And then there is the emperor’s balcony, where you, Serenity, will hide. It hangs above the level of the gaslights, and while it has its own light fixtures, the jets may be shut off so that they will not come on at dusk.”

“Will not Dach’osmer Tethimar be making use of it?” Maia asked. “No, thank you,” he said in a lower voice to Min Csolitin as she proffered him a slice of cake.

“No, Serenity, for he — and the young zhas — must stand before the altar for the ritual,” Zhadra replied. “We have heard you have two archers in your party; they can guard you in the balcony.” Valto lifted her chin in acknowledgment. “The rest of us will conceal ourselves elsewhere until it is time to strike,” Zhadra continued. “Therefore mazeise energy need not be sunk into disguising any of us, and the presence of magic itself will not reveal us to Dazhis ahead of time.”

“Zhadra Athmaza,” Beshelar said from his spot against the wall. “We understand that Cala must devote his energy to the mazeise efforts. But we and Lieutenant Telimezh had planned on staying by His Serenity’s side, as we have sworn to.”

“While we respect the gravity of the vows you and Lieutenant Telimezh took, Lieutenant Beshelar,” Zhadra said, “strategically speaking it would be far better to have you both in combat and have the two archers standing watch over His Serenity. We need your fighting skills on the floor of the Untheileneise’meire, and we need their marksmanship in the balcony — where His Serenity will be the safest.”

“Serenity?” Beshelar asked anxiously, looking at Maia.

“We defer to Zhadra Athmaza in this,” Maia said resolutely. “We understand the prescriptions of your oath, Lieutenant, but you and Lieutenant Telimezh may serve us best that night by fighting for us.” Beshelar looked unhappy, but he did not contradict Maia.

Recalling Zhadra’s earlier words, Maia asked him in the plural, “Would Dazhis not be able to sense our presence in the Untheileneise’meire in any case?”

“Not unless he were specifically anticipating us and seeking us out, Serenity,” Kiru said, digging her fork into the side of her slice of cake. “And that is a possibility, given the rumors that have been abroad about you throughout the Elflands. It is also within the realm of possibility that he has broken through the wards we have set upon this suite and elsewhere in the Mazan’theileian.” Beshelar’s face tensed, Valto blanched, and Csevet flinched. Cala, the Adremaza, Zhadra, and even Nistho looked grim but unsurprised. Maia’s luncheon lurched in his belly.

“However,” Kiru continued with fork poised in midair, “you must remember that no matter how great the powers he has usurped unto himself, Dazhis’s energy is finite, as is any maza’s. He is currently the sole maza-nohecharis for the young Varenechibel Zhas, and he must not only guard him spiritually half the day but ascertain his spiritual safety the other half. This requires significant energy in and of itself. His role in the Winternight coup may have led him to overconfidence that his ill-gotten powers make him a match for all other mazei combined; certainly, when we knew him, he did tend to underestimate other mazei in comparison with himself. Finally, Serenity, there will be so many people in the Untheileneise’meire that no maza would be able to comb through even half their thoughts and wills. Think of trying to understand the words of all the voices in a crowd at once, and you will have a rough idea of the effort required.”

Maia nodded. He still felt less safe than he had a minute before, but Kiru’s calm, matter-of-fact recitation of those facts was reassuring nonetheless.

“So, if we have it correct from the Adremaza,” Zhadra said, “other than your archers, Serenity, you will have thirteen fighting men.”

“Fourteen, maza,” Csevet said quietly.

The head of everyone else at the table swung around to face him. Csevet’s face was hard, but it was not the stone of his mask. His eyes were just as hard, and bright, and his ears were flat to his head. The slice of cake before him lay untouched.

“We did not know you knew how to fight, Mer Aisava,” Beshelar said, an ocean of tempered curiosity in his words.

“We are not soldier-trained, no. However, we have had to defend ourselves on numerous occasions with our fists, and we know how to wield a knife or dagger to lethal effect. And we are, when need be, extremely quick to move.”

Maia’s heart swelled and pounded all at once. He wanted to throw his arms about Csevet, but he was not sure whether he wanted to laud him for his courage or shield him from what awaited them in the Untheileneise’meire.

Beshelar blinked, then said, “Well. You will be no match head-on for a guardsman, Mer Aisava, but if you have both stealth and speed your participation could be advantageous. When we are all reunited with Sergeant Baleär and his men and we are hammering out tactics and formation, we will consider how we can best put your strengths to use.”

“So, then. Fourteen fighters,” Zhadra resumed. “Plus the archers, although they will need to conserve enough arrows for your defense, Serenity. The odds are not as good as we would like, but a victory is possible — especially if some of the current guardsmen defect to our side. They are, we have heard, quite demoralized. But we cannot count on such defections.”

“And how will we enter the Untheileneise’meire without being spotted, Zhadra Athmaza?” Beshelar asked. “There is only one entranceway, unless there are rear doors to the Archprelatial offices. And at this juncture we have no irrefutable indication of the Archprelate’s loyalties.”

“There are,” Zhadra said, “ancient underground passages into and out of the Untheileneise’meire, long pre-dating the construction of the Untheileneise Court. They open into false sarcophagi that are not bolted or welded shut. We did not know of them ourselves, until Mer Celehar told us of their existence.”

“The Ethuveraz is practically pitted with underground tunnels, it would seem,” Maia observed. Csevet’s lips twitched as he picked up his fork.

“These are at least fifteen hundred years old, Serenity,” Celehar said. He had waved away a slice of cake, just as Maia had. “Originally they were built to facilitate the staging of god-plays for congregants. They have also had their political uses down the centuries, providing escape routes for clerics of Chevarimai and other suppressed cults. Those protected by clerics have also been guided to safety through these passages, though blindfolded and with their ears plugged. The existence of these tunnels has always been a secret unto the prelacy, who take vows not to reveal their existence upon threat of revethvoran.”

“And, yet, you are revealing their existence now,” Maia said, frowning.

“We are,” Celehar said, “for we see no other choice.” His eyes glinted coldly again, and his ears flattened. “If we all fail in our mission, we will die regardless, and our death will be far less kind than that afforded by the revethvoreis’atha. If we succeed, our fate will be in the hands of the prelacy. Specifically, the Archprelate and the Council of Prelates. We will accept their judgment and, an ordered to do so, take our own life in the knowledge we have saved many others.”

“We would override any such judgment,” Maia said vehemently. “Especially an it transpires that Teru Tethimar has made common cause with his cousin.”

“It would not be within your power, Serenity,” the Adremaza said. “Nor ours. When one takes a vow to protect someone or something unto death and one fails at that vow, one must commit revethvoran if one wishes to be welcomed into Ulis’s realm. Otherwise one will wander without rest from one’s death until the end of the world. No one, not even a zhas, may intercede, as this is a matter not between mortals but between mortal and god. The exception is in extremely extenuating circumstances, when the vow has been deliberately forsaken to prevent a far greater evil, but whether that criterion is met is up to the superiors of the potential revethvoris. For mazei, it would be ourself. For soldiers, it would be their generals. And for clerics, as Mer Celehar has said, it would be the Council of Prelates.”

“Then we would bring as much pressure as we could to bear upon the council,” Maia insisted.

“We appreciate that, Serenity,” Celehar said. “But please know that we will not expect absolution.”

Something in his eyes shifted. It was ever so minute, but Maia was suddenly struck with the clarity of Cstheio Caireizhasan: _He wishes to die for his own honor._ He swallowed. He could not, he knew, reason Celehar out of this; quite possibly he would be unable even to get Celehar to admit it. He certainly was not about to try before more than half a dozen others. It was, he thought, something he would address when the time came.

If that time came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Map of the Untheileneise’meire.](https://imgur.com/a/LCPvr)


	13. The Warded Bedchamber

Before the day’s end a novice returned from the riverfront with Telimezh, Baleär, the other guardsmen, and Taris in tow. They were all put up in a clean and capacious cellar, where they slept on pallets by night and, except for Taris, trained by day.

Taris and Valto did not spend much of the next four days in the Mazan’theileian. Hooded and cloaked, they ventured out each morning into Cetho. As they later told their companions, they would separate and wander for a bit to deflect suspicions from the Athmaz’are. Then each would pay an ostler at a different stable for the day’s use of a horse, and they would ride out separately and rejoin one another in a lightly wooded area just outside the city. There, they would hone their bowmanship together until the sun began to sink, and they would return to the the Mazan’theileian in time to take supper with the others.

Csevet, on the other hand, joined the soldiers daily in the cellar for combat training. When Maia saw him at supper the second night he wanted to cry out: Csevet’s beautiful face bore a heavy bruise across the left cheek. He walked with the stiffness of an old man, and he winced upon sitting down at table next to Maia.

“Are you all right?” Maia asked under his breath as Min Csolitin arrived with a tureen of soup.

“Yes, Serenity,” Csevet said tersely.

“In sooth?”

Csevet closed his eyes. “In sooth, we are in marvelous shape for someone who spent the day being buffeted about by thirteen well-trained soldiers. We anticipate, however, making our apologies the moment supper is over so that we might collapse into bed shortly thereafter.”

With both soldier-nohecharei engrossed in training, the warded room in which the mazei and Celehar conferred was deemed by far the safest place for Maia to be during the day. However, Maia was not privileged to listen to their conversation. “It is for your safety, Serenity, as well as to honor the protocols of the Athmaz’are,” Cala explained. Thus Zhadra set up a separately warded space within the chamber that resembled a cell made of warped glass. From within it, Maia could see the blurred figures of Cala, Kiru, Zhadra, Celehar, and Nistho as they spoke with one another, but he could not make out their expressions, and he could not hear a word of what they said. If he needed a lavatory or some other necessity, he was to merely tap on the “glass,” and a novice would hasten to the room to attend upon him.

The Adremaza offered to supply him with non-mazeise books to pass the time. Maia, finding his powers of concentration sorely attenuated in the face of imminent battle, chose to spend it meditating instead. He closed his eyes; cupped the icon of Cstheio Caireizhasan in his palms; and let his mantra bear him beyond time, space, and the agonizing processes of his own mind.

From suppertime to sunrise, Beshelar and Telimezh took turns watching over Maia. They accompanied him to the suite that had been set aside for Mireän and Ino, where he embraced the girls, reassured them, chatted with them, and played board games with them. It seemed to be the highlight of their day, as they were not permitted to do anything more adventurous than play in the courtyard allotted to them.

Maia visited Hithera, too, with Taris at his side. For once Hithera seemed less confined than the little dach’osmichen. He had eagerly volunteered his help in the stables, for he wanted to see horseflesh other than the shaggy ponies of the Osreialhalans. “And he’s been making himself quite useful there. Hast not?” Taris said, smiling and ruffling Hithera’s hair.

Hithera blushed. “They let me take Midnight for a ride. She’s a black mare, Serenity. I was scared at first. I mean, she’s much bigger than the ponies at home, and she’s not as calm. But I whispered to her and told her she was a pretty girl, and it soothed her. I think she likes me, Serenity. She eats dried lady apples out of my hand.”

The only deviation from this post-supper routine occurred on the second day, and it was at Maia’s request. He met with Sehalis Adremaza in the same warded room in which the Adremaza had first greeted him.

“What do you require of us, Serenity?” the Adremaza asked after straightening from his deep bow.

“Bluntly, an we do not prevail in battle, that plans are made for the care of the children,” Maia said.

The Adremaza blanched. “Well. The boy can be sent home to his parents by airship, we imagine. With or without his elder brother. As for the dach’osmichen, what does Your Serenity propose?”

“That they be sent, under both mazeise and soldierly protection, to the Tativadeise estate where the Archduchess Vedero shelters,” Maia said. The Adremaza’s brows rose sharply. Maia ignored that and continued, “The archduchess would be their closest living kin, and she is the one who sent them away from court with our First Nohecharei to protect them. She and her circle of friends, better than anyone else we could think of, would make sure they were raised safely by guardians who cherished them — as children, not merely as pawns of the powerful.”

The Adremaza said nothing at first. From the pull of his mouth, Maia imagined he was envisioning the little girls helping Vedero and her friends build mechanical contraptions, their clothing soaked with oil and grime. But finally he said, “As Your Serenity wishes. In the event that our plans go awry, the dach’osmichen will be kept here, hidden from the Tethimada and their allies, until their safe transport to Thu-Tetar can be arranged.”

“Have we your oath on this?” Maia pressed.

Sehalis Adremaza looked faintly offended, but he replied, “You do, Serenity. As you are now their closest male kin, and their mother is dead, you are entitled to make such choices for them. We will have one of our scribes draw up a legal document which you can sign, and we will put our signature to it as a witness. We cannot predict what Dach’osmer Tethimar may choose to do, but neither he nor anyone else will be able to gainsay your decision in accordance with either law or custom.”

Maia fought the urge to close his eyes in relief. If nothing else, he had ensured that Mireän and Ino would live and thrive, and that alone, he thought, justified his return to Cetho.

***

On the penultimate night at the supper table, he thought Csevet seemed to be moving less stiffly and to look less exhausted. He leaned over and murmured, “May we speak together afterward, in private?”

Csevet blinked but did not otherwise alter his expression. “Of course, Serenity,” he said quietly in reply.

“In private,” by necessity, included Beshelar and Telimezh standing against the wall. Maia drew Csevet aside and, positioning himself that the nohecharei would not see his expression, said softly, “Once more.”

Csevet said nothing at first, perhaps wondering if Maia would continue. When Maia did not, he asked, “How?”

Maia understood the question. It was not simply the ever-present nohecharei who posed an obstacle; it was the other soldiers, all the mazei in the Mazan’theileian, and Taris and Valto. Had Csevet been a woman, all would have turned a blind eye. But he was not. And, other than Mer Celehar and perhaps Cala, Maia had no idea how many of them would refuse to follow an emperor who was at all marnis. He remembered Mathueret’s disgusted remark about “perversion,” Thuikis’s taunts in the bath and in the shed, Rauviga’s and Foduama’s unthinking implication that men who lay with other men were “debauched,” Celehar’s fall from grace. And, too, all the times Setheris had ranted drunkenly about marnei within Maia’s hearing.

“We will speak to Cala Athmaza,” he said. Csevet nodded, his expression composed as usual. But the yearning in his rain-colored eyes made Maia ache from heart to loins. It was all he could do to not drag him into a passionate kiss, nohecharei be damned.

The next day — the final day — before the glass-cell maz was cast in the warded room, Maia asked, “Cala, might we speak with you in privacy a moment?”

Celehar, Kiru, Zhadra, and Nistho rose immediately, even before Cala said, “Of course, Serenity,” and the four of them exited the chamber.

When the door had closed behind them, Maia held Cala’s eye. “We will not dissemble. You are aware that we and Mer Aisava were intimate at Daiano.”

Cala blinked hard behind his thick spectacles. After a few awkward seconds had passed he said, “Serenity. We did not and still do not feel it our place to comment on it.”

“We are not requesting commentary,” Maia said firmly. “We request, an it be within your power and will not hinder you in battle tomorrow night, a chamber in which Mer Aisava and we may … spend a few hours together after supper, without raising suspicions among any others in our party. For we are keenly aware we may never be able to do so again.”

There was a stab of pain in the pale-blue eyes. “Of course, Serenity,” Cala said. “A maz can be set upon a room that will conceal all … sound. The maza who casts it will be alerted to anything that might go wrong, such as, for example, an occupant of the room having a sudden brainstorm. However, said maza would not be privy to any other activities or conversation in that room.”

Maia, forcing himself not to think of the implications of Cala’s pause before the word _sound_ , asked, “Would it be overly trying for you to cast, the night before your energies will be most needed?”

Cala shook his head. “It is just an alert, Serenity, not at all difficult to establish. Lieutenants Beshelar and Telimezh must be made aware of the situation, of course —”

“Must they?” Maia asked, dismayed.

The corner of Cala’s mouth twitched. “They are loyal to you and you alone, Serenity. And perhaps less critical than you might think, but were they not they would still cleave to you as their emperor. As for all others in the Mazan’theileian, they need know nothing more than that you, and Mer Aisava, are separately at prayer. Our guess is that some of the guardsmen will be doing likewise tonight.”

“Praying, you mean?”

Cala did not suppress his smile this time. “Perhaps, Serenity.”

Losing himself in his mantra that day was no easy thing. Getting through supper was even harder. Csevet sat beside Maia as usual, eating delicately, conversing with the others about their plans. With every glance at his calm face, Maia thought, _Soon we will be kissing, and my naked skin will be against his, and I will be inside him._ His hands trembled more than once upon his utensils. Let the others think it was nerves over the imminent battle.

After the meal, he briefly visited the little girls, Beshelar standing watch over them all. Then, his First Soldier-Nohecharis still shadowing him, he repaired to his own bedchamber, cleansed his teeth, dabbed restlessly at himself by the washstand despite the bath he had taken before supper, and awaited Cala’s arrival.

Beshelar spoke not a word when Cala came to retrieve Maia, and his expression was inscrutable. Maia wondered what Cala had told him, and what he thought. Then Cala was leading him along corridors and down staircases, and Maia’s excitement was building, crowding out any thoughts of Beshelar and his judgments.

Excitement lapped through him when he saw Csevet standing in what seemed to be a rather unremarkable doorway. Csevet’s expression was as calm and masklike as ever; Maia felt as though his own emotions, in contrast, must have been written across his face.

With a twist of his palm over its knob, Cala unlocked the door. The bedchamber beyond was clean but small, sparse, and exceedingly plain: its colors were drab, it held no furniture other than a bed that could accommodate two plus a fully supplied washstand, and both bedlinens and carpet appeared worn with use. Maia supposed that such an unprepossessing room in and of itself would deflect the attention of the curious, as would its location two levels below the ground.

“We do not recommend more than a few hours, Serenity,” Cala said neutrally. “We must all rise very early in the morning.”

“We understand, maza,” Maia said.

Cala nodded. “When you are done, clap thrice for us.” Not looking directly at either Maia or Csevet, he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

It had barely clicked shut when Maia found himself pinned to the wall, Csevet risen up on his toes to press his mouth against Maia’s and tangle his hand in Maia’s hair. Maia seized him and bent his smaller form to fit against his own. They kissed hard and biting, wild and wet, until they both stood panting. “I’ve longed for this so much since Daiano,” Csevet breathed. Maia’s reply was to capture his lips again, and it was near impossible for either of them to break the kiss even as they tugged at one another’s clothing, barely remembering not to pop buttons or rip seams.

Csevet managed to get the buttons of Maia’s shirt undone, then lowered his head to bite at Maia’s nipples. Maia whined into the fist he pressed to his mouth — and Csevet seized his wrist and pulled it away. “None can hear us, not even Cala Athmaza,” he said. “I want to hear thee moan and cry for me.”

Maia’s face went even hotter than before. “I …” He trailed off, looking down at the threadbare carpet.

Csevet cupped Maia’s face in his hands, hot and rough upon Maia’s skin, and turned it back to look at him. Maia nearly flinched at the sheer heat of Csevet’s gaze: how could eyes the shade of rain _burn_ so? “Maia. Be not ashamed with me,” Csevet said gently. “There’s no shame in anything we’ll do, no matter what might’st have heard.”

The words reminded Maia of his dream at Talorathee; his face was positively scalding now, but the blood was surging into his cock as well. He pressed his palms over the backs of Csevet’s hands upon his cheeks. “I know,” he said softly. “It’s just … I have no such experience, other than with thee in Daiano. I’d never even kissed another before.”

Csevet’s eyes went wide. “In sooth?”

Maia closed his own. “In sooth.”

“How …” Csevet brushed his thumb over Maia’s lips, soft and tickling, and Maia quivered at the sensation. “Art so beautiful, Maia, every aspect of thee.” He paused. “If wish’st not to speak of him, we won’t, but … did thy cousin keep thee under lock and key?”

“He didn’t need to,” Maia said bitterly, his eyes still shut. “Other than Setheris, the very few folk at Edonomee were servants who’d known me as a small boy.” The bitterness in his voice deepened. “He went to the nearest village on occasion. He never brought me along. He did inform me, however, on numerous occasions after my thirteenth birthday that the only folk there who would have stooped to — to lie with a backwards, moonwitted half-breed hobgoblin would have been whores, and said hobgoblin would have had to pay dearly for the privilege.”

When Csevet did not reply at first, Maia opened his eyes again and shivered anew at the look in Csevet’s. But the heat they radiated was now of a very different kind.

“This is the sort of opinion that earns a courier a public scourging if the wrong ears hear it,” Csevet said. “But know that thy cousin Setheris Nelar is a wretched piece of shit.”

It was so unlike Csevet that Maia burst out laughing, forgot he was braced against a wall, threw back his head, and winced. _“Ow.”_

Csevet began to chuckle. “I’m glad I’ve made thee smile, though I’d rather thou not dash’st thy brains out with mirth.” His face grew serious again. “But — in sooth, Maia, shouldst take nothing that man has ever said to thee to heart. I’d not been in his company for two minutes before I recognized his ilk, and it’s one I’ve met many times over. It was a great injustice to thee that wert subjected to him for so long, and when wert so young.”

He lifted the fingers of one hand from Maia’s cheek to entwine them with Maia’s, for Maia’s hand still lay upon his, then brought Maia’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “And especially shouldst not take anything to heart he’s ever said about thine appearance. Thine eyes alone are stunning, even more so against the hue of thy skin, and so richly lashed. Thy cheekbones are so delicate and striking, like the vaults in an Edretantheise othasmeire. Thy hair is like sable … it grieved me so to crop it, back in Celvaz. And in the Caireinazhaio I could not get enough of the feel of it between my fingers.”

Maia’s hair now fell past his shoulders. Csevet reached up and ran his hand through it. “May we both live long enough for this to grow back to the proper length for an emperor — and that I shall feel it tumble down into mine eyes night after night as fuck’st me until I cannot walk.”

“Oh, _gods,”_ Maia breathed, all doubt and nerves burnt away by Csevet’s words, and it were as if the headlong kisses of moments before had never stopped.

Finally Csevet pulled back, breathing heavily. “Tonight,” he said, stroking Maia’s cheek again, “I intend to commit every part of thee to my body’s memory. Mine eyes, mine ears, my mouth, all of me. If I must take the memories with me to Ulis, I will.”

“Speak not of that now,” Maia pleaded, his heart feeling suddenly as if there were tight bands around it. “Please, Csevet.”

Guilt flickered across Csevet’s features. “Forgive me, I’ll no longer speak of it. In sooth I think there are better ways I could use my tongue at the moment.”

Maia caught his breath. “Perhaps the bed would be preferable to the wall for such things?”

“Perhaps it would.” And Csevet drew him there by both hands.

He let Csevet take his shirt from him and cast it to the floor, then bear him backward onto the bed, kneeling over him as he mouthed again at Maia’s nipples. Every movement of his tongue against them, every delicate sinking of the edge of his teeth into them, sparked fierce heat that seemed to travel on wires to Maia’s loins. He found himself pressing his hand to his mouth once more, stifling whimpers and sobs, before Csevet gently but firmly seized his wrist and pulled it away again, whispering, “Wilt deprive me of those lovely sounds?” Maia made no reply to that; he tried, in sooth, not to utter any sounds at all, but within a minute Csevet’s attentions had rendered that attempt entirely futile.

Then he twitched, hips jerking, as he felt Csevet’s lips move down his breastbone and belly. It tickled somewhat, but the more important thing was — “What art doing?” He raised his head.

“Shh.” Csevet was unbuttoning Maia’s trousers now. “Lift thy hips for me.”

Maia obeyed, and trousers and linens slid away to let his cock spring out. Csevet had no sooner pulled the garments off his legs and feet than he seemed to dive for Maia’s cock, swallowing it halfway. Maia jerked again and cried out incoherently at the heat and wetness of Csevet’s mouth, then found his breath. “Csevet — wait.”

Csevet lifted his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Is … is that clean? I wouldn’t want thee to — _ohh!”_

Csevet, who had just drawn the tip of his tongue across the ridge on the underside of the head, smiled up at Maia. “Of course it is. We both bathed less than two hours ago, dost recall?”

“But … it is …” Maia frowned, embarrassment heating his face again. Yes, Csevet had spoken of it in that alley in Chezhvaho, and Maia had pleasured himself to the thought of it. But this was no fantasy.

“… a most excellent thing to have in one’s mouth,” Csevet finished for him. “Did I look somehow unhappy when I first took it in?”

“No,” Maia admitted.

“Then wilt lie back and allow me to give thee pleasure in this wise?”

Caught between uncertainty and excitement, Maia acquiesced. A few seconds later there was no more uncertainty. He was making sounds even less dignified than he had made when Csevet had bit at and sucked his nipples, and every new stroke of Csevet’s tongue wrung ever-more-humiliating noises from him.

When he felt Csevet’s lips upon the skin of his stones, he jumped yet again — and again when he felt a spit-wetted finger circling his hole. “Wilt — wilt not put thy mouth _there,_ wilt thou?” he yelped.

“Why, dost insist upon it?” came the teasing reply.

“No!” Maia threw his arm over his entire face.

“I’d planned only to use my finger.” Csevet’s voice lost its teasing note. “Would that distress thee?”

Remembering how, in the Caireinazhaio, Csevet’s face had contorted with ecstasy as he stroked inside himself, Maia said weakly, “It … would not.”

“If it begins to, tell me and I’ll stop.”

It did not distress Maia at all, but the sensation was odd, once Csevet’s finger had breached him and continued inward. A strange fullness, an uncomfortable friction against sensitive inner flesh. But Csevet had nearly spent from such a touch alone, and nothing Csevet had done just now had not brought Maia pleas—

“Oh. _Oh.”_

He felt cool air against the wet skin of his cock as Csevet freed it again that he could kiss Maia’s inner thigh. “Good?”

How could _good_ even begin to describe the assault of sensation upon his cock — from the outside, with every slide and twist of hot, slick mouth-flesh over its skin; and from the inside, as the anbaric charges Csevet’s finger struck deep within him shot down through his loins straight into his thighs? He had no idea how to form words anymore, had no idea how he managed to coherently utter, “Ah, Csevet, what dost thou to me?”

Csevet unsheathed Maia’s cock from his mouth a third time, pressed it against his face, and kissed the tip. “Loving thee,” he said softly. And suddenly Maia was past the precipice’s edge, shouting, sobbing, hips clearing the bed as he spent violently into Csevet’s mouth and over his chin.

He stared blindly up at the ceiling, panting, whining, shaking… and jolted again as Csevet continued to stroke him deep inside. His hips juddered at the intensity of the sensation, and tears sprang to his eyes — and his cock twitched hard, and he could feel it begin to swell with blood again.

“Art all right? Shall I stop?” Csevet whispered.

“No,” Maia gasped, even that small, simple word an effort to utter.

“‘No,’ art _not_ all right? Or ‘no,’ don’t stop?”

How did Csevet expect him — _merciful goddesses._ Maia groaned, driving his hips upward, trying to answer Csevet without the words that were failing him so badly now.

“Gods. Art so hard again, one would never guess hadst just spent like a fountain.” Csevet was licking around the head now, one finger lightly tracing the vein on the underside. “Ah, to be nineteen again…” Maia writhed, half terrified he would not leave this room sane, half not caring at all. “I’d fain not let this beautiful cockstand go to waste as the last one did. Might I ride thee?”

With another groan, Maia sat halfway up and grabbed Csevet by the shoulders, hauling him upward on the bed. “Wait, I’m still dressed!” Csevet exclaimed with a hint of laughter in his voice. “Wilt not spend again in the next ten seconds, wilt thou?” He was already on his feet and stripping his shirt from his torso.

 _“Hurry,”_ Maia seethed.

“I am entirely at Your Serenity’s service,” Csevet replied with far more aplomb than he’d any right to, Maia thought desperately.

It was indeed only seconds more before he was as naked as Maia and was crouching over him. Maia sucked in a breath as he felt his cockhead touch the circle of Csevet’s hole, then felt Csevet begin to bear down upon him.

With no grotto walls to cling to, Csevet could not raise and lower himself on Maia’s cock the same way he had in the Caireinazhaio. Instead, he anchored his feet beneath Maia’s body and ground his hips against him. The friction directed against Maia’s cock was even more maddeningly pleasurable. He wanted nothing more than to thrust into Csevet, but with Csevet’s weight squarely upon his hips he’d no leverage whatsoever.

He gritted his teeth. “Let me —” Puzzlement rippled across Csevet’s expression of profound pleasure. Exhaling hard, Maia sat up with Csevet in his lap, then gripped the backs of Csevet’s thighs.

“What — _oh,”_ Csevet breathed as Maia swung his own legs over the bed.

Csevet was heavier than he looked, and Maia had not exerted his newfound muscles in days. But they took Csevet’s weight with little tremor as Maia bore his lover back to the bedchamber wall. Csevet’s back hit it with a thump, and Maia pinned him there above the floor with his hands on Csevet’s forearms as, jaw clenched, he drove savagely in and out of him. Every thrust of his drove the air from Csevet’s lungs with a wheeze, and the sound drove more blood into Maia’s cock. Csevet’s heels dug hard into the valley of Maia’s spine as their teeth and tongues and lips fell together again, almost tearing at one another, and the taste of his own spend was in Maia’s mouth. Then Csevet shifted his head to shout into the crook of Maia’s neck and Maia could feel hot, wet seed working its way up between their sweat-slickened bellies and chests. He groaned a final time, his thrusts now short and brutal, his hips hammering up against the center of Csevet’s body until his second climax wrenched him.

It was an effort not to stagger. His stones seemed to burn, and every breath of his own was a wheeze. He managed to lower Csevet until Csevet could get his feet under him again, then sagged against the wall, breathing heavily. Csevet grabbed Maia’s face and pulled it down for another relentless kiss, then shepherded the both of them back to the bed.

“Csevet,” Maia said tentatively some time later, when his legs no longer felt like jelly and his vision no longer sparked at the edges.

“Aye?” Csevet murmured against Maia’s chest, which was now clean. He had insisted on cleansing the both of them with wet linens from the washstand before collapsing atop Maia in dazed bliss, in which state they had lain silently for a while.

“Thou saidst … when I asked thee what wert doing to me….”

There was a silence that almost certainly was not as long as it seemed. Maia tensed. He recalled from the scandalous novels Kevo devoured that one might be a _lover_ to another, but the act did not necessarily entail _love,_ the emotion.

“I didn’t lie,” Csevet said. “I love thee, Maia.”

Maia’s hand stilled in Csevet’s hair. He knew from those same novels his next words should be _And I love thee._ What came out was, “When didst know?”

When Csevet next spoke, his voice was barely audible. “When I killed the assassin for thee.”

It was simultaneously the last thing Maia had expected to hear and the least surprising thing in the world.

When he did not respond at first, Csevet added, his voice clearer: “I told thee, on the Great Plateau, that once I saw him try to kill thee I couldn’t have stopped to save mine own life. I don’t know if it’s something like a mother watching someone about to harm her child. I’ll never know that. It went beyond anger for me; it were as if the gods themselves moved my limbs. And then I’d no time to ponder it, for I had to bring thee out of Azharee, and _then_ I had to reckon with the blood on my hands.”

Maia began to stroke his hair again. “So… didst not truly know then?”

“I knew later. The knowing of it grew in me — when I bathed with thee, when we cut one another’s hair, when we labored together, when I watched the fever almost claim thee, when saved’st me from those two wretches in the shed.” He paused. “But … it was Winternight, I think, when I truly knew.”

Csevet laughed then, softly and uneasily. “I was, in sooth, terrified. I’ve fucked many men far above my station, but I’d never been in love with one before. Most such matches I’ve seen have been ill-fated; it mattered not if both parties had the best of intentions, and it wouldn’t have mattered hadst thou lived out thy days as a laborer. It was far easier for me when I could still tell myself that all I did was for the Elflands, that if I died for thee I would die a patriot and a martyr. Not as a lovesick fool.”

Maia nearly sat up at the bitterness in Csevet’s last words. “Csevet. Art the furthest thing from a fool I can imagine. Art indeed a patriot — hopefully no martyr. As for lovesickness, I think art hardly any competition for me.”

He heard a soft huff that might have been the ghost of a second laugh. Then, slowly, Csevet asked, “When didst thou know, for thyself?”

“When could I _name_ it as love? Not until tonight, in sooth. But …” He thought of Csevet’s face under his hat, moonlight and starlight easing its sharp lines and fine points. “… When first I understood I wanted thee, it was Winternight as well.”

They were silent for a while again, doing no more than caressing one another. Maia could imagine the ticking of a clockwork, perhaps in Cala’s chamber. They would have to dress, summon him, and leave before long. The odds they would have this sort of time to themselves ever again were exceedingly low.

But Csevet loved him, and he knew he had Maia’s love in return.

_Thank thee, Bright Lady. Couldst not have given me a better gift of clarity._

His fingers still reveling in the silken feel of Csevet’s hair, committing it to his memory, he thought of all the things he could say now. _If diest tomorrow night, die quickly and easily, and know with thy dying breath that I love thee and always will and will wait for thee in Ulis’s realm._ He pondered the wisdom of saying them for several minutes before he shook the thoughts away. There was nothing in them that Csevet did not already know. And it gained them nothing for Maia to darken these last moments together with such words.

Instead he waited until he dared not wait any longer, then said, “We should rise and dress, beloved.”

Csevet turned his head and brushed his lips against Maia’s chest. His eyes overran with emotions that pierced Maia to the roots of his heart as he stood and began to pull his clothes on, Maia following suit. When they were both fully clad once more, Maia brought his hands together once, twice, and, with a twinge in his breast, for the third and final time.


	14. The Untheileneise’meire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is the second-to-last chapter before TWE goes on hiatus from Sun., Dec. 17 until Sun., Jan. 7._

The underground passages out of the Untheileneise’meire, Celehar had told them over supper, led to the banks of both the Cethora and the Istandaärtha. “In earlier times, Serenity, the escapees might have had either skiffs hidden in the reeds or confederates waiting for them on the water. Of course they might have continued on by land instead, but the rivers provided them with alternatives.”

The waning hours of the night once again found their party mustered with weapons, food, and other necessities bundled on their backs. This time they stood a few hundred feet from the western bank of the Cethora, just above the bounds of the court. It was not quite cold enough to freeze the water over, but the cutting wind from off the river was damp, and the dampness settled into Maia’s bones. He’d grown accustomed to the dry cold of the north, he realized; the air about him now brought back memories of Edonomee’s miserable winters.

Even at this hour, with its upwaters frozen solid, the waterway was not deserted. Three or four fishing dories had sunk anchor in the middle of it; around them, other fisherfolk rowed their skiffs, and bargemen paddled their scows. A lantern hung from every hull, permitting navigators to avoid crashing into one another in the darkness. The gaslights of distant docks and warehouses pinpricked the edges of the night about them.

There were no such structures near the spot to which Celehar had led them. Cala’s carefully shaded lightball illuminated only a small, solitary house made of stone. It appeared to be nothing more than a rundown, abandoned fisherman’s cottage, and it was surrounded by piles of rubbish: the wrecks of small boats, smashed crates, and glass and ceramic shards. Now and again, Maia’s nostrils could pick up the faintly fragrant offal of countless catches. He supposed he should thank the Lady of the Stars that the fish entrails were frozen solid and no insects were about at this time of year.

“Mind your steps, everyone,” Celehar said as they wove between the rubbish piles, then filed one by one into the small house. Maia glanced up nervously at the half-caved-in roof, as did Csevet, Taris, Valto, and the soldiers. But neither Celehar nor any of the mazei seemed to pay it any mind. Maia chose to trust that it would not fall upon and crush them in the next twenty minutes.

The ground beneath their feet was spongy and crunching with frozen dead vegetation: grass, sedge, reeds, ferns, and the thorn-studded remains of a few stunted trees. Celehar stopped in the middle of the overgrown floor and, with one heavily booted foot, kicked and brushed away a heap of plant matter entwined with rubbish that had made its way into the house. Beneath it, the lightball revealed a circle of what to Maia’s eyes looked like stone, darkened with age and overgrown with moss. There seemed to be hinges and handles set into its perimeter.

“Can it be opened without mazeise powers?” Zhadra Athmaza asked doubtfully.

“We shall try, maza,” Beshelar said in the plural.

He nodded to the guardsmen, and three who were his equals in height and breadth stepped forward. The four of them knelt by the handles and, on a count of three, hauled upward as hard as possible. It took several tries, punctuated with grunts and wheezes and the rattle of the dropped stone circle back into place. But finally one of them gave a “Ha!” of victory that the others took up. Slowly they struggled from their knees to their feet, dragging the circle upward, and then its outer side thumped down dully upon a mass of frozen sedge.

As Beshelar and the three guardsmen panted for breath, Maia gazed down into the even darker circle revealed. Memories of his escape from Azharee flooded him. Here, though, Cala would have the lightball to show the way, and there were no pursuers to run from. Not yet.

The steps leading down into the earth were once again of stone. Here, hard by the river, they were thick with moss and mold. So were the recesses in the walls that served for railings. Beshelar and Telimezh would not permit Maia to touch them but insisted on locking arms with him on either side and guiding his steps, as parents might those of a very small michen.

“Step _very_ carefully, everyone,” Baleär said sharply. “The further we descend, the slipperier it will grow.”

He had spoken in sooth. Shortly, each of them had one arm locked with at least one other person — Nistho was borne between Zhadra and Kiru, as Maia was between Beshelar and Telimezh — and some of the guardsmen had drawn short blades to stab into the dirt of the walls for purchase. Occasionally, a gasp or hushed profanity would signal that someone’s foot had slipped, and all of them would stop until that person had righted their precarious stance.

The stairs went down, and down, and down, the flight easily as long as that into Daiano’s caverns. By the time they reached the last step, the substance under Maia’s boot soles seemed to have degenerated into pure slime. Relief rushed through him as Telimezh and Beshelar eased him down onto the dirt floor of the tunnel and released his arms.

“Are you ready to proceed, Serenity?” Beshelar asked, flexing the arm by which he had guided Maia.

“We are,” Maia said, working out the stiffness in both his arms.

The tunnel permitted roughly three people to walk abreast. Much like the one created by the devotees of Chevarimai, it seemed to continue without end. _Two miles,_ Maia thought, recalling the map that Zhadra had presented after supper the last few nights at the Mazan’theileian. Beshelar and Telimezh flanked him again, with Baleär right behind him. Just in front of Maia, Cala led the way with the lightball, Celehar at his side. The rest of them clustered loosely about. They all moved slowly enough that Celehar, Kiru, and especially Nistho could keep up on their shorter legs, and no one spoke.

With light, and without the terrifying goad of pursuit, Maia found the passage disorienting in a different way than the tunnel at Azharee. The packed earth beneath their feet was surer than the steps, but it was damp nonetheless, nearly sodden in spots. The earthen walls were thick with moss. Other than the occasional squelch under a boot sole, the tunnel seemed to absorb all sound. Their progression took on the otherworldliness of a dream. Maia wondered if this were how the dead felt as they followed the servants of Ulis from his antechamber to the hall of his judgment.

He had lost all track of time when he heard a guardsman ahead of him say, “Stairs.”

“Serenity,” Beshelar said as he and Telimezh extended their arms again.

The journey upward was more arduous but less fearful. At this distance from the Cethora, and sufficiently away from its confluence with the Istandaärtha, the steps were not as slick. All of them climbed, and climbed, and climbed, until the lightball gleamed off something black and glossy above their heads.

“We are here,” Cala said in the plural, his voice hushed. “Mer Celehar?”

Celehar halted several steps down from the top. Reaching upward, he pressed his gloved palm to the glossy surface. Then he extended himself fully on tiptoe, exerting more pressure and moving his hand experimentally in various directions. There was the low-pitched scrape and rumble of stone on stone.

“Will not someone in the Untheileneise’meire hear the noise, Mer Celehar?” Maia asked quietly.

“It is unlikely, Serenity,” Celehar said, “especially so early in the day. Few if any pray alone therein; it is a space for large gatherings, not for intimate petitions to the gods. Clerics at court usually perform their morning devotions in their private quarters. A few do prefer the satellite shrines, but this entrance is not hard by any of those. And the Untheileneise’meire will have already been cleaned by now for tonight’s ceremony, so we should not encounter servants, either.”

He pushed again at the surface a few more times before he managed to slide it — it seemed to be a panel — out of his way. Then he began to ascend the last few steps, but checked himself, as if remembering the dozen and a half people who stood silently beneath him. Turning his head to them, he said, “If you would all please wait briefly, we will test the lid of the sarcophagus, then ascertain whether we all can emerge in safety.”

Maia watched Celehar disappear above the last step. He heard a soft click, then a rumble similar to that of the panel Celehar had moved. A sort of half-light seeped into the upper end of the stairway. There was then utter silence, other than the hammering of Maia’s pulse in his ears. Though it seemed an eternity, it was probably less than two minutes before he saw Celehar’s boots drop back onto the upper steps, and Celehar lean down just far enough that he could silently beckon the others to follow him.

They went up in single file, moving slowly, with Beshelar before Maia and Telimezh right after. As they guided him into the upright sarcophagus, he was flooded with the same panic that had beset him the moment he had been left alone in the vigil chapel beneath the court — no, a worse panic. The heavy stone of the chapel had symbolized the endless, lonely burden that no emperor ever laid down until he went to Ulis. But now it was the walls of a literal tomb that rose about him — foretelling his death, the deaths of those who followed him, fast and terrible if in battle, slow and even more terrible if they did not prevail but were not struck down on the spot — 

“Serenity,” Telimezh murmured, close to Maia’s right ear. “Breathe.”

Maia inhaled deeply, let the breath out slowly — and before he could take another, he found that his soldier-nohecharei had led him onto the white floor of the Untheileneise’meire, which glowed sullenly in the lackluster light of winter morning that sank through the oculus.

“So we are here,” he whispered in the plural.

Beshelar and Telimezh shephered him further forward, that the rest of their party could emerge into the light. As Celehar had predicted, they were the only ones present in the vast othasmeire, but they all hewed close to the sarcophagus and its neighbors nonetheless.

“Let us all take our places,” Baleär said. Though he spoke quietly, his voice carried, conducted by the white marble of the Untheileneise’meire and the black marble of the sarcophagi. “Mer Rishonar, Min Dichin, accompany His Serenity to the balcony.”

***

Presuming they would be in hiding until the ceremony began at sundown and that any exit from and re-entrance into the Untheileneise’meire would heighten the risk of discovery, they had brought enough water and food for all of them for the day. Taris and Valto each carried heavy skins with them, along with their bows and quivers. Maia insisted upon carrying their bundle of jerky, dried apples, hardtack, and cheese.

“And how are we all to …. tend to our needs in the emperor’s balcony?” Maia had anxiously inquired of Zhadra Athmaza in private, after the initial supper of planning.

With an exquisite neutrality that Csevet would have envied, Zhadra had said, “We understand there is a covered chamberpot in the balcony, surrounded by a small screen that conceals the lower half of the body. The arrangement permits emperor, empress, and nohecharei to discreetly see to their needs without disrupting a ceremony or missing any part of it; or, in the case of the nohecharei, abandoning their posts.” When Maia stared at him, struggling to keep his ears up, Zhadra had added, “We understand it will be awkward, Serenity, especially in mixed company. However, we see no safe alternative.”

“We see,” Maia had replied with rigidly forced calm.

His tone had evidently not been as sanguine as Zhadra had hoped for. The maza had said, a bit more kindly, “Min Dichin appears to be a rather practical young woman, not given to overconcern about modesty. We are sure she will not be scandalized, Serenity, by either you or Mer Rishonar using the convenience in her presence, nor the reverse.”

Maia was not sure later if Zhadra’s concern had truly been for Valto’s sensibilities, or if he had knowingly deflected them from Maia onto her to save Maia face. However, he seemed to have been right about Valto, who upon gaining the balcony set down her burdens, murmured, “Please excuse us,” and headed for the chamberpot. Maia and Taris turned their backs without comment, but Maia’s face grew heated at the resultant sound, and in the gloom he thought Taris’s seemed rather pink. Then he heard the lid settle back into place and the rustle of Valto pulling up her trousers.

By mid-afternoon, when each of them had used the pot at least twice, awkwardness had given way to the gnawing terror of forced inactivity before a decisive event. Maia rather wished he could exchange it for the awkwardness again.

It was not a wait in unmitigated silence. Their heads were below the rail of the balustrade, their outerwear was piled up against the balusters, and the balcony was lushly upholstered: all of this dampened sound sufficiently that the three of them felt safe conversing in whispers. Over breakfast, Taris and Valto related history and folk-tales from their respective regions of the Ethuveraz; Maia shared a few bits of Edonara lore he had learned from the servants as a child. When these topics had run their courses, Valto and Taris fell to talk of hunting again. Maia could listen to only so much of it; while his archers spared him the grislier details of their kills, the general theme put him in mind of all the ways their plans could go wrong that night.

“Would either of you be offended if we withdrew from conversation a while to meditate?” he asked politely, reaching into his cloak pocket for the icon. “We understand it is considered an old-fashioned practice nowadays, but it will help us focus our mind for later events.”

Their eyes widened. “Of course not!” Taris exclaimed in an undertone.

“You needn’t ask _us_ permission, Serenity,” Valto said. “If we’re boring you with our hunting stories, please do tell us to put a glove in it.”

Maia gave her a weak smile as he unwrapped the icon. “You are not, to be sure.” And he turned from them and closed his eyes. _Cstheio Caireizhasan, hear me,_ he thought as his bare fingertips slid over the rough surface of the half-stone. _Cstheio Caireizhasan, see me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, know me._

He lost his rhythm and had to begin anew several times over. He forced himself to bear with it, just as he had before his mother’s funeral, during every punishment from Setheris, during those first frightening minutes in the vigil chapel.

It took a while, longer than it ever had before. But soon he began to sense the heavy stone around him, not with any of his five mundane senses but deep in his blood. The underground passages had existed for fifteen hundred years, Thara Celehar had said; the Untheileneise’meire had stood even longer, certainly far longer than the Untheileneise Court. In its sarcophagi slept generations of Drazhada and those sworn unto them to the death. Its white floor held memories of thousands, perhaps millions, of feet that had trod it to hear emperors take their vows, to see them wed, to greet their newborn heirs, and lay them to rest. Its walls had heard millions of prayers by cleric and layman alike. The Untheileneise Court might be the head of the Ethuveraz, but here lay its heart, and the countless numbers who had petitioned the gods of the _Thu_ here over the millennia were the blood that pumped through it.

Maia let the pulse of that blood carry him along with it until it became yet another mantra that lay outside the realm of speech. It waxed and waned, ebbed and flowed, the wordless singing of his people to their gods, the timeless existence of their greatest othasmeire. He and those who followed him, those who loved him, might all go to Ulis tonight. But Ulis would claim Dach’osmer Tethimar in time, too, and all who followed him. Another, whether Drazhada or Tethimada or some other house, would eventually reclaim the ivory throne and bring peace and justice to the Elflands. And the centuries would sweep on and on, the millennia as well, and still the Untheileneise’meire would stand and its people stand within it, no matter what events whirled about them, until the gods ceased to unspool Time from its spindle.

He opened his eyes again, after how much time had elapsed he knew not, and watched the stars of the Bright Lady’s cloak glimmer in the waning light of the afternoon.

His hard-earned peace of mind was immediately jolted by two voices far below: one tenor, one baritone. They echoed harshly off the marble all around.

“…the boy,” the higher voice was saying. It was a beautiful voice, and strikingly familiar, but at first Maia could not place it.

“He is none of your concern,” the deeper voice said, and Maia placed it immediately: Eshevis Tethimar.

“He is indeed our concern,” the first man retorted. Maia realized suddenly that this was the Archprelate — Teru Tethimar, cousin to Eshevis. He had not initially recognized it because he had never heard the man speak in such anger before. He peered down between the balusters, through a gap in the cloaks, to where the speakers stood.

His first thought was, _So he now wears imperial white._ And so Dach’osmer Tethimar did: his trousers and jacket were as colorless as the marble all about him, as were his dyed calfskin boots. In his heavy braids and along the lower edges of his ears he wore drops of imperial amber. The fine shirt he wore below the jacket was black, and from behind the jacket’s left lapel peeked the Tethimadeise device, embroidered not in the crimson of that house but in white. The shirt was no more than a sop to the strictures of rank, Maia thought, as had been his own father’s armband to the strictures of mourning.

“Varenechibel Zhas is ill in body, mind, and spirit,” the Archprelate was saying. He wore the simple black clothing of a cleric who was performing his duties but not presiding at the moment over a ceremony. “We are responsible for his spirit, there being no chaplain in the imperial household, and neither body nor mind can be decoupled fully from spirit for that matter.”

As Maia went cold, Dach’osmer Tethimar snapped, “He has the physicians of the Tethimada to attend upon him for any such needs; they are learnèd men of long experience at doctoring. Your concern is appreciated, cousin, but it is unnecessary.”

“That is not for you to decide,” the Archprelate said flatly.

There was a long pause. Every hair on Maia’s nape was standing, and his ears were flat. He darted a look at Taris and Valto, who appeared as tense as he felt.

Dach’osmer Tethimar drew himself up and squared his shoulders, then stepped closer to his cousin. The Archprelate was not a short man, but his cousin towered over him. “Dost challenge us, Teru?” Dach’osmer Tethimar asked, with an exceedingly false mildness Maia recalled all too well from the times Setheris had been both angry and sober.

“Art not emperor, Eshevis,” the Archprelate said more quietly, but his tone was no less implacable as he stared upward into his cousin’s face. “Art regent. May’st hold the reins of the Ethuveraz in thy hands, but its power is not invested in thee. It is invested in Idra Drazhar. Trust that we _will,_ as Archprelate, do all that is within our power to see to his wellbeing — and his continued survival.”

“We mislike what implyest by thy choice of words,” Dach’osmer Tethimar said, and there was no mildness in it now, false or otherwise. “Wouldst do best to consider, cousin, that thy benefice would not shelter thee from charges of treason or sedition.”

“Would it not be simpler to arrange some sort of ‘accident’?” The Archprelate’s tone had lightened in a way that reminded Maia of a slender, finely worked silver blade. “We do not hunt, of course, so we could not meet the same fate that took thy brother —”

Dach’osmer Tethimar was a large man, but he moved as fast as a serpent. There was a blur of motion, then a muted thud that vibrated up into the balcony. Maia saw that Dach’osmer Tethimar’s fists gripped the collar of the Archprelate’s robe and that he had his cousin’s back pressed up against one of the two pillars supporting the balcony.

Whatever words the two men exchanged from that point on were too soft to carry upward. Maia, his heart pounding, watched them as they spoke, nothing moving but their lips, until Dach’osmer Tethimar released the Archprelate’s collar with a further shove. He then strode the length of the Untheileneise’meire, the baleful eyes of his cousin upon his back, until he exited its doors. The Archprelate for his part retreated through the door behind the altar that led to the offices associated with his post.

“We suspect they are not in fact allied,” Valto said in a dry undertone.

“To be fair, they may very well be,” Maia replied. “But, if so, that alliance is at best greatly strained.”

As sundown would be within the next few hours, they decided to sup. The meal was far quieter, far grimmer, than breakfast had been. Maia thought that it was not merely that the time of battle was drawing near, but that both Taris and Valto had laid eyes on Eshevis Tethimar and heard the veiled accusation of the Archprelate. Their ears were flat, as were the lines of their mouths, as they shoveled their food into the latter and chewed with ferocity. Maia had little appetite, but neither had he any idea of how long the battle would be or when he would next eat again. If, indeed, he ever ate again. Jerky, cheese, apples, and hard biscuits alike tasted like ash in his mouth, but he forced down each mouthful and chased it with water.

They were done eating well before sunset, but they were only just finishing when the Untheileneise Guard came in.

The rank and file entered first. Maia worried at first that they would stand behind the pillars, heightening the danger that they would spot something amiss among the sarcophagi. Instead they stood in front of the pillars, facing the open space of the Untheileneise’meire. When they had taken their places, two last guardsmen entered in armor and robes. The face of the man in the fore was hidden behind the fiery colors of Anmura’s mask. The face of the man who followed was tight and hard. Maia, who had come to appreciate Captain Orthema before the first coup, would not have wagered that his countenance behind the mask was any less formidable than that of his subordinate.

The two positioned themselves at opposite sides of the altar, standing at perfect attention. Most of the other guardsmen held the same exacting posture, Maia noted, while a minority seemed more lax in their stances, a few even leaning against their pillars.

Some time passed. A pair of canons, junior ones judging by their robes, emerged from the Archprelatial doorway. Maia recognized Canon Thorchelezhen, who had assisted Celehar in Witnessing for Maia’s father and half-brothers. She had a length of white cloth draped over her arm, while her male counterpart held a bottle of wine in one hand and a heavy glass chalice encrusted with gilt in the other. Neither acknowledging the captain and his subordinate nor acknowledged by them, they laid the cloth carefully over the altar together, then set bottle and chalice upon it. Their movements, to Maia’s untrained eye, seemed to be ritual in nature, although he could not discern the pattern behind them.

The day’s light continued to wane, and all the gaslights — save the ones in the balcony, which Valto had made sure were turned off — waxed brighter and brighter. Maia watched courtiers began to drift into the Untheileneise’meire, and he recognized almost none of the earliest ones to enter. He wished Csevet were beside him to point them out, tell Maia their names and the ranks of their houses and where they had stood in relation to Maia’s dead father and where they stood in relation to Eshevis Tethimar.

He wished Csevet were beside him, against his body, in his arms.

 _If diest tomorrow night, die quickly and easily, and know with thy dying breath that I love thee and always will and will wait for thee in Ulis’s realm._ And, for the first time in the entire day, his eyes welled and his throat closed.

He shook himself of these thoughts. He needed clarity of mind. His defenders needed a strong emperor. Taris and Valto did not need to catch his maudlin mood.

More courtiers had entered by now, but the Untheileneise’meire was nowhere near as full as it had been for the funerals or for Maia’s coronation. The easiest of all faces to spot in the crowd were the dark ones of Vorzhis and Nadaro Gormened and of the two Hezhethoreise Guardsmen who trailed them at a discreet distance. The Barizheise guardsmen, of course, would have been conspicuous even in a crowd of goblins with their massive size, spiked armor, and crested helmets. Maia was startled at first; would not his grandfather have recalled the entire party to the Corat’ Dav Arhos after the first coup? He supposed that so long as Gormened had made the journey already, the Great Avar had decided to keep him in Cetho to maintain diplomatic relations as best he could.

He then spotted several Witnesses of the Corazhas — Berenar, Pashavar, Deshehar, Bromar — and the wives of those first two lords. There was the tiny, doll-like figure of Csoru Zhasanai holding court with several other young women. There was Maia’s iron-faced half-sister Nemriän and her husband the Marquess Imel. There was a man whom Valto had seen a few times before and whom she identified as the Prince of Thu-Cethor. By analogy to his clothing Maia thought he could identify the men who ruled two other principalities, if not the specific principalities themselves.

It was with a lurch of his heart that he spotted the stately figure of Arbelan Drazharan, her face a cool mask. Upon seeing those of Marquess Ceredel and his wife, he felt pity. He had never seen Dach’osmerrem Ceredaran before, but the woman was stick-thin, as the Adremaza had intimated, and both she and the marquess looked drawn and despairing.

Dach’osmin Ceredin herself, once again, was nowhere to be seen.

The idea that any of them might die tonight, even those for whom Maia had no liking whatsoever — even the Untheileneise Guardsmen on duty, who might kill him and his followers — made him queasy. He knew not which god to pray to for the safety of them all. He had only ever prayed to Cstheio Caireizhasan, and one did not ask the Lady of the Stars to change fate, only to grant one the clarity to see it. He closed his eyes nonetheless and sent outward, toward the satellite shrines of the various gods, his silent wish that all below him live to see the morning.

Last of all to enter the Untheileneise’meire was a loose cadre of perhaps sixteen men. Ten of them fairly sauntered in. In his brief time at court, Maia had learned enough about couture to recognize that the clothing of these men was both extremely expensive and flamboyant to the point of tastelessness. The remaining half-dozen were dressed with much greater refinement, and they walked with the bearing that implied kinship to great houses. One of them, who had to have been at least sixty years old, looked like an aged Eshevis Tethimar. Duke Tethimel, presumably. The other five were younger and did not seem to resemble either the regent or the Archprelate. Maia guessed they were of houses allied with the Tethimada, although of course they could have been Tethimadeisei who took after their maternal lines.

All sixteen, save the duke, wore swords at their hips: a thing forbidden in the sacred space of the Untheileneise’meire to any but Untheileneise Guardsmen. Maia noted that as the group traversed the Untheileneise’meire, some of the guardsmen whose stances were rather lax hailed them loudly, to be hailed back by the men in flashy raiments. The guardsmen who stood at precise attention did not acknowledge them, and Maia thought he could see the faces of some of them harden.

The Untheileneise’meire had no windows, only the oculus above. But by the dimming of the natural light it admitted and the ever-greater brightness of the gaslights, Maia sensed that the last rays of the sun now winked on the horizon. The atmosphere below him, he thought, had grown even tenser. With the appearance of the flashily clad men, various other courtiers had gone stiff in posture, like rabbits scenting a wolf. The drone of conversation had also acquired what Maia thought an ominous undertone, one he did not recall from any of the events he had attended as emperor.

As the last men to have entered took their places at the very front of the crowd, the light dimmed even more. The drone began to die away. Then the Archprelate, in red robes and the mask studded with semiprecious stones that marked him as consecrated unto Cstheio Caireizhasan, entered through the doorway behind the altar. Utter silence fell.

“Good evening,” he intoned to the crowd, as the two junior canons emerged again and stood unobtrusively against the rear wall on either side of the doorway. His voice was as beautiful as when Maia had first heard it. “You are, of course, eagerly awaiting the pleasures of the Midwinter Ball in the Untheileian. However, in response to the disquiet that has swept through the Ethuveraz in the wake of Winternight’s events, we have initially gathered you here in the Untheileneise’meire to reaffirm the rule of Varenechibel the Fifth under the sagacious guidance of our Regent, Dach’osmer Eshevis Tethimar.” There was no rancor, not even the faintest shadow of irony, to the words — nor any of fear, either. The man’s aplomb was remarkable, Maia thought.

There was movement again in the doorway behind the altar. The broad, tall form of Eshevis Tethimar nearly filled it as he moved out into the Untheileneise’meire, followed by a topknotted man in soldier’s garb and a baldric that bore both a Drazhadeise and a Tethimadeise seal. Before him the second man hustled a smaller, slighter, trembling form, a figure in pure white whose elaborately braided and netted hair glinted with amber.

 _Varenechibel Zhas is ill in body, mind, and spirit,_ the Archprelate had earlier said, and he had spoken in sooth. Idra seemed to have become as thin as Dach’osmerrem Ceredaran had, a dismaying thing in a growing boy on the cusp of manhood. Gone was the unflinching gaze Maia remembered from the garden stoa; while Idra’s breeding yet permitted him to set his ears and to look others in the eye, even so far above Maia could see the ghosts in Idra’s own eyes, the way he seemed to shrink from Tethimar’s every casual movement.

And he knew, then, what he had only feared so far. He dug his shortened nails into his palms as the world turned red around him.

“Serenity?” Valto murmured, the final syllable lifting in subdued worry.

Maia dragged in a breath, then bit hard into the inner flesh of his mouth. Leaping over the edge of the balcony and tearing out Eshevis Tethimar’s throat with his own hands was not an option. He was no soldier, nor “Hound,” nor executioner. He was the rightful emperor. His power lay not in the physical strength of his hands, the way Beshelar’s and Telimezh’s and Baleär’s lay in that of theirs, but in his blood and in his mind and in his heart. And in the bodies and minds of those who followed him.

“We are fine,” he whispered back. “Are you ready?”

He turned his head back to see her. She stood now, in the shadows of the balcony, up against the right pillar. Her quiver was strapped to her back, leather guards were laced about her forearms, and her bow was in her hands. Her face was no less hard than that of Captain Orthema’s subordinate.

“Ready and at Your Serenity’s service,” she said tersely as she moved to the balustrade. Taris, similarly prepared, followed suit.

Maia looked down once more and felt yet another jolt of pure rage run through him at the sight of the third figure who now leaned against the rear wall of the Untheileneise’meire. Not a hair of his long white queue was out of place, and under his baldric with both the Drazhadeise and Tethimadeise seals the lines of his blue robe were crisp and sharp.

Vengeful thoughts once again wormed their way into Maia’s mind, threatening the composure he had just wrested back for himself. He ruthlessly suppressed them. The fate of Dazhis Athmaza was in the hands of the fellow mazei he had betrayed, for in their hands, too, lay Maia’s power. They would bring him down, or they would die trying. As would the soldiers, and Taris and Valto. And Csevet.

And Maia.

Below, Idra stood at the altar, flanked by Eshevis Tethimar and the soldier whom Maia assumed was Idra’s other First Nohecharis. The Archprelate was pouring wine into the chalice. He lifted it in both his hands, thanking Orshan for the rich soil in which the grapes had grown, then petitioning all the gods to watch over Varenechibel Zhas, fifth of that name, and over their Regent, Dach’osmer Eshevis Tethimar.

As the Archprelate lowered the great cup, his eyes upon Idra, Maia saw movement out of the corner of his eye. In the air before him, in front of the balcony and high above the crowd, he thought he saw something move as well.

Idra took the cup from the Archprelate in both hands and sipped from it. Maia saw his hands tremble on the glass. His eyes wide, the corners of his mouth turned down, he proffered it upward to Eshevis Tethimar, who accepted it with a broad smile and began to raise it.

Valto’s arrow shattered the chalice before it was halfway to Tethimar’s lips.


	15. The Emperor’s Balcony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With the posting of this chapter, TWE will go on hiatus until the Sunday after New Year’s Day.

It were as if the silence up until that moment in the Untheileneise’meire had been a wall of wool and the chalice’s shards had sliced clean through it, releasing countless cries and gasps that echoed off the marble.

Idra’s soldier-nohecharis had pulled him away from the altar even before the arrow had struck the chalice. The arrow’s momentum had borne most of the shards away from Tethimar — and toward Dazhis, who had shoved the male junior canon out of his way in order to duck them. But the front of Tethimar’s jacket and trousers were dark-red with wine. A second later, Maia could see that Tethimar’s palms were dripping something more viscous and vivid.

Belatedly, somewhere in the crowd, Csoru Zhasanai screamed.

“What —” Tethimar spluttered.

Maia rose to his feet. The air before him shifted again, and then the shade fell away from Cala’s lightball, revealing Maia — and Valto and Taris to either side of him, bows in hand — in full to the crowd.

“We name thee murderer and usurper, Eshevis Tethimar,” he called down, his voice ringing off the walls and pillars. Anger still streamed through him, steadying his tongue and bringing his words easily to his lips. His fingers ached with his grip on the balustrade. In disgust he added, “And ill user of children in thy power,” eliciting more gasps from below.

“And we name _thee_ the lunatic, ill-bred hobgoblin that thou art!” Tethimar roared up at him.

At the edge of his vision Maia perceived that Idra had run to the side of the Archprelate, who sheltered him under his arm, and both of them were staring wide-eyed up into the balcony. Idra’s soldier-nohecharis had stepped closer to them. Dach’osmer Tethimar continued, “We see now that we should have come up to Azharee ourself to put paid to thee.” More exclamations rose from the nobles in attendance.

“So it was thee who sent the assassin,” Maia said, feeling not a whit surprised. “Not the Princess Sheveän.”

Tethimar did not answer him but instead barked out a command: “Chunota. Take His Serenity to safety.” The soldier-nohecharis gripped Idra’s forearm none too gently and — Idra still staring upward in disbelief — began to drag him toward the doorway to the Archprelatial offices. The Archprelate and his junior canons followed them with alacrity.

“Hounds! To us,” Tethimar snapped as Idra’s party disappeared from view. The cadre of men who had been the last to enter the Untheileneise’meire, save for Duke Tethimel, began to encircle him protectively. One of them handed him a sword, which he brandished above all of their heads. The blood from his palms dripped down the hilt, and despite himself Maia winced, but Tethimar seemed to not even register the pain. “Come down here like a _man,_ Thy Grace,” he sneered, “and fight us for the throne. If durst.”

The majority of those attending the ceremony, including Tethimel, had begun to shrink away from the altar toward the exit doors on the opposite end of the Untheileneise’meire. Maia could spot the twin crests of the Hezhethoreise Guardsmen towering over all other heads as they ushered the Gormeneds to safety. All the Untheileneise Guardsmen present now stood ready at their pillars, even those who had been slouching against them before.

“That is why we have all come here tonight, Dach’osmer Tethimar,” Beshelar’s voice called from the shadows of the sarcophagi to the left of the altar as he, Baleär, and Telimezh stepped out from them, with Csevet and the eleven former guardsmen massed behind them. Each man was clad in the jacket and trousers of an ordinary soldier, the garments made up of multiple layers of silk interwoven with cotton and padded beneath with more cotton. Each wore a helm with gorget to protect his head and throat. Each held a sword in his right hand and a small shield — a buckler, Beshelar had called it — in his left. “To fight for our emperor — our _true_ emperor — that he need not soil his hands with you.”

The head of every Untheileneise Guardsman on duty spun in their direction, and Maia heard several hushed profanities. One of those who had before stood indolently at his post called out, “We await your orders, Dach’osmer.” Captain Orthema’s head rose and his shoulders squared, and his subordinate across the altar from him mirrored his actions with narrowed eyes and bared teeth to boot.

“Maza,” Tethimar snapped instead. Dazhis stepped closer to the knot of Hounds encircling Tethimar and gave one vigorous nod of his head. Stone scraped deafeningly on stone, and Maia saw with horror that the enormous sarcophagus behind his soldier-nohecharei and their companions had began to move toward them —

— and then it stopped abruptly. Dazhis said nothing, but his face knotted in consternation and his ears went back.

“And that is why _we_ are here as well,” Cala said in the plural as he, Kiru, Zhadra, and Nistho emerged from the sarcophagi to the right. The four of them walked side by side, hand in hand, and Thara Celehar followed them closely.

Dazhis stared at them in shock, then began to laugh; his laughter was loud and unpleasant. “Two dachenmazei, a michenmaza, a damned _novice,_ and a disgraced Witness for the Dead? Mer Celehar, we hope you’re prepared to introduce your new friends personally to Ulis tonight.”

“If you can, maza,” Tethimar said with a wide grin, “leave that girl alive and whole for us.”

Maia could see Nistho’s hands tremble in Zhadra’s and Kiru’s. Taris swore like a stoker and loosed an arrow directly at Tethimar.

The courtiers who had not fled the Untheileneise’meire entirely but remained clustered near the exit shouted and screamed as Taris’s arrow approached Tethimar — and then the arrowhead _slid_ off the skin of his forehead, clattering uselessly to the floor. Valto and Taris swore in unison now as Dazhis smirked. Maia heard a quieter but equally fervent profanity from the direction of his own soldiers.

Tethimar beamed broadly up at Maia. “Didst think we’d be slain so easily? Have thy mazei all together the same might as our one?”

 _Ah,_ Maia wondered, thinking of what Kiru had told him upon the first supper at the Mazan’theileian, _but can_ thy _maza protect all thy men in the same way? Has he cast a shield over thee that will last all the night, or must he turn arrows away from thee one by one? And how long will his reserves of energy last him?_

He leaned forward over the balustrade again and replied only, “Wilt see for thyself.”

Even as he spoke he heard the boots of his men resounding upon the floor of the Untheileneise’meire as they emerged from the shadows. They had barely all stepped into the light when the Hounds, Tethimar at their fore, charged them.

It was no massive battle. Perhaps it might not even have counted as a skirmish on the Evressai Steppes. But Maia, who had never witnessed any fighting beyond the fisticuffs in the alleys of Ezho, stood transfixed and horrified at the thirty-odd men below him attempting to cleave their enemies in two. He saw one of his own soldiers go down within the first twenty seconds and two Hounds step upon the body as they pressed their advantage. A second former guardsman dropped to his knees, and only the quick action of one of his comrades prevented a Hound’s blade from beheading him where he knelt.

“Serenity,” Taris said sharply, “they’re moving too fast. Valto and we, we can’t loose our arrows lest we kill one of our own men.”

“Aye, we weren’t able to train for _this_ out in the woods,” Valto said mournfully.

“Hold, then,” Maia said without taking his eyes off the scene below. “Fire when you think it safe, but not until.”

Then there was a sound Maia had never heard before — a thud, he thought, but with a thick wetness to it. It had barely registered with him when a jet of blood spurted out from the cluster of combatants below, the floor under their boots already slick with blood and … other matter. Something hard and round thumped away from them across the floor, trailing something long and white behind it and leaving little red spots in its wake. From within the knot of fighters, Eshevis Tethimar laughed loud and long.

“Serenity, _do not look,”_ Valto shouted, her voice shaking.

“We saw,” Maia said weakly, and leaned over the balustrade and vomited his supper.

When he straightened again, his head light and his throat stinging, he thought he heard more shouts than before, more steel clashing on steel. He blinked tears away and saw that the size of the battle below had doubled — and the pillars all around were vacant. Some of the guardsmen had joined forces with the Hounds, but most rallied to the figure in the fiery orange and red mask who fought standing between Beshelar and Telimezh. Maia gripped the balustrade harder and fought the urge to shout Captain Orthema’s name from his acid-scorched throat.

Then he thought, _The mazei. What of the mazei?_

He darted a glance over to where Cala and the others stood, straight-backed and flat-eared. Thara Celehar stood off to the side, arms folded and eyes narrowed. The four mazei still held hands as they stood with their feet apart, heads high, eyes trained hard on Dazhis. Cala, Kiru, and Zhadra were all pink to the tips of their ears, Cala the most darkly so, and though Nistho’s skin would show exertion even less well than Maia’s her form was no less rigid than those of her elders. Despite the cold of the Untheileneise’meire, the faces of all four had begun to glisten.

Dazhis had also turned dark pink, his face too was sheened with sweat, and all his sinews appeared to be straining. He bared his teeth at his enemies, perhaps as much out of effort as out of defiance. Maia wondered if his own mazei and Dazhis had fought one another to a standstill. Whatever magical combat was playing out before his own eyes, he had no way to perceive it. Did he dare hope Cala and the others would keep Dazhis’s powers bottled up until and if Maia’s soldiers, aided by most of the Untheileneise Guard, had vanquished Tethimar and his Hounds?

He did not dare. And, despairingly, he was glad he had not dared when he heard the heavy scrape of marble on marble once again. The eyes of his mazei were bulging with terror and strain, and Celehar’s face was a mask of horror. Dazhis was smiling with what to Maia seemed profound relief. Maia swung his head toward the soldiers, but no sarcophagus had moved in their direction —

— and that was when the stench hit him.

It was not a foul but mundane smell, like the dung of the Parugo stables or the rancid sweat of boiler room laborers. It was of decay, of the sickroom and the grave, with undertones that called to something in the unthinking brain and made all the hairs on one’s body stand on end. And it was very like a wall, like the most humid heat of the summers in Edonomee. Maia staggered backward under its weight. He saw that Taris had turned green, and Valto looked as though she were about to heave her own supper over the balustrade. Below, he could hear a chorus of coughing and retching.

His hand flung over his nose and mouth, he stared wildly around the Untheileneise’meire for the source of the foulness — and his heart and blood and every vein that carried it froze within him as he saw that the lid to his father’s sarcophagus had opened.

The head of Nemera Drazhar, Varenechibel Zhas, fourth of that name, was still muffled in a long length of white lace. But then one end of that length rose into the air, and the cloth began, slowly, to unwind itself from around Varenechibel’s head. Unable to drop his gaze, Maia stared the bones and teeth revealed by the flesh that had been burnt away, the charred tatters of skin that remained, and the dark, ragged hole of a mouth.

“Hast thou wept at all, Maia? Dost mourn thy family?” Varenechibel burbled, a dark liquid dribbling from the ruined opening beneath the bones of where his nose had been. “Dost weep for me?”

There were screams of horror and the sounds of more vomiting below, and though there was still the ring of sword on sword there was not as much of it now. Maia could not speak. His legs shook, and only his grip on the balustrade kept him from sinking down to the balcony floor. Between the stench and the sight he wanted to vomit again, but there was nothing left in his belly at all.

“Merciful goddesses,” Taris whispered. Valto was silent, her eyes saucer-like with horror.

A hoarse voice called out from the opposite side of the Untheileneise’meire: “O Ulis, Lord of Death, Lord of Relinquishment, whose kindness is found in cold and in silence. I most humbly beg thy compassion for Nemera Drazhar, Varenech—”

The words ended in another choking noise, and then there was a light thud. Maia’s head spun in the direction of the mazei to see Thara Celehar on his knees, his nose bloodied and his eyes bright with rage. As he struggled to regain his feet, Cala reached down with a shaking free hand, never releasing that of Kiru, and clumsily helped him up.

“… Varenechibel Zhas, fourth of that name, awoken unnaturally from his eternal sleep,” Celehar began anew, his voice unsteady. “See — see fit to grant him rest —” His words cut off again, this time with a great winded gasp, and he pitched face forward onto the floor. Maia cried out incoherently.

Celehar managed to push himself up into a kneeling position. There was bloody spittle at the corner of his mouth, and the blood from his nose flowed down into it. When he tried shakily to stand again, Zhadra Athmaza called out in alarm, “Mer Celehar, _no!_ Hold for now, or it will kill you!”

The Witness for the Dead gave no indication he had heard the words at all but instead attempted to stand once more. This time Cala put his hand on Celehar’s shoulder and pushed him back down. Cala’s teeth were gritted, his hand still shaking, but Celehar had not the strength to resist him and finally subsided. His entire body trembled, and sweat ran down his face along with blood. But he bared his teeth — Maia remembered him demanding the letter of introduction to the Prelate of Cetho — and his ears were so far back as to be invisible. Maia shivered.

“Damned whelp, wilt not weep for the man who sired thee?” Varenechibel seethed wetly. He reached out of his coffin with his broken, burnt hands, their grip nonetheless seeming as ironlike as they had been in Maia’s nightmare, and with one on either side of his sarcophagus he began to push himself out of it. 

Zhadra spoke a word that Maia did not recognize. Cala, Kiru, and Nistho all spoke a second word that was unfamiliar to Maia, and they lowered their heads. Then Zhadra began to recite something, his words simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar, in the same manner as Cala’s unlocking maz at Daiano. The words spun out from him, taking on substance in midair; they became threads that began to weave themselves together into a long white cloth, and the cloth floated toward Varenechibel.

Dazhis shouted a word, the threads unraveled, and Zhadra’s face turned a dark red.

“Zhadra-Teacher?” Nistho’s voice shook as she looked up at him.

Marble again scraped on marble, and a new voice — a woman’s, dry as years-old leaves, her accent very different from Varenechibel’s, echoed through the Untheileneise’meire: “Dost still say thy mantra, Star’s Child?”

“No,” Maia whispered brokenly. _“No.”_

“I miss thee so, Maia,” Chenelo Drazharan husked through her lipless mouth. Her skin was shrunk like parchment to her bones. “Wert all I had in this sorrowful world. I am so lonely in Ulis’s realm: no father or sisters or son to keep me company.” He watched the bones in her hands and arms move under the paper-thinness of her skin as she, too, began to lever herself out of coffin and sarcophagus. “Wilt not fly to thy mother forevermore?”

Out of the corner of Maia’s eye, through the cascade of his tears, he saw two flashily dressed Hounds bolt across the Untheileneise’meire for the exit, screaming in terror. Tethimar bellowed after them, _“Whoreson cowards!_ We will _flay_ you!”

Zhadra took a deep breath and began his recital once more — and fell like a sack of lead, nearly pulling both Kiru and Nistho to the floor along with him. Out of his open mouth came not maz-words but blood, and it spurted from his nose and ears as well.

_“Zhadra-Teacher!”_

Zhadra rolled like a rag doll on the floor, eyes staring and ears limp, blood pooling under his cheek. Cala, Kiru, and Celehar stared at his corpse in silent shock.

“Ugly half-bred whelp, would I had never tupped thy dam at all,” Varenechibel growled, the words bubbling in his mouth and throat as he stepped forward onto the Untheileneise’meire floor. His ichor dripped from his rotted, burnt flesh, discoloring the white marble beneath him.

Even through his tears, and hers, Maia could see Nistho’s eyes blazing vivid orange. She dropped to her knees beside her teacher and ran her forefinger through his blood. Then she stood, drew her bloodied finger across her lips, and began to wail: a long, wordless threnody that echoed off the marble surfaces all around.

 _“Nistho!”_ Kiru shouted, reaching for her, but Nistho ducked her grip and danced away from her and Cala, several feet out onto the floor of the Untheileneise’meire, continuing to keen. Kiru and Cala stared after her, looking winded and shocked. Maia followed the line of her sight and saw Dazhis gasping for breath and leaning on the altar for support.

“Maia-michen, wilt not join me?” Chenelo pleaded, her voice like the hiss of the late-autumn wind over the Edonara as she stepped from her coffin with creaking bones.

“Serenity!” Nistho bellowed up at him. “Yours is the living blood! _Cut your hand!”_

Maia, stupefied with grief and terror, could not at first make sense of the order. “Here,” Valto said urgently, handing him an arrow. It was much longer and heavier than Maia had imagined arrows to be. He stared dumbly at it weighting his arm down until Valto huffed and said, “Forgive us, Serenity.” With her right hand she took the arrow back from him. Then she took his right hand in her left one, and she gouged the arrowhead into the back of it.

“Oh,” Maia said, as if she’d told him that his flies were unbuttoned. He watched the blood well up in the cut.

“Mer Celehar!” Nistho yelled as both Cala and Kiru seemed to break out of their trance, came forward, and grabbed her hands.

Celehar, his face still bloody, was rising to his feet again. He threw back his head and intoned, as loudly and as solemnly as the Archprelate, no tremor now in his voice at all: “O Ulis, Lord of Death, Lord of Relinquishment, whose kindness is found in cold and in silence. I most humbly beg thy compassion for Nemera Drazhar, Varenechibel Zhas, fourth of that name; and his Zhasan, Chenelo Drazharan, awoken unnaturally from their eternal sleep. See fit to grant them rest. Thou art the most merciful of the gods, for thou turnest no soul away in the end.”

The corpses of Maia’s parents both ceased to move forward.

Celehar continued, “Return to your eternal rest, Varenechibel Zhas, Chenelo Zhasan. It is your right, and the right of all others who have entered Ulis’s realm. The man who dragged you from it with his ill-gained powers has no love for you, nor for your son, nor for the Ethuveraz. Return to your eternal rest. Your son will join you in the halls of Ulis when it is his time, and no sooner.”

At first there was no reaction. Then Varenechibel simply collapsed onto the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Some distance away, a man screamed.

Chenelo remained standing a moment longer. She stared at Maia with the sightless pits of her orbits, and she breathed, “I am sorry, son. I love thee still.” Then she, too, collapsed beside the husband who had put her and their child aside.

Maia clung to the balustrade, trembling so hard that later he marveled he had not shaken the balusters out of their sockets. He sobbed helplessly, as he had not since Chenelo had died, tears and mucus running down his face. He felt a hand on either of his shoulders, and he was able to neither acknowledge them nor brush them off.

Then he jumped backward with a scream as the air around him boomed and filled with clouds of black smoke. His eardrums seemed to throb with the sound, and for a moment he feared he had been deafened, for he could no longer hear swords making contact with one another. But he heard more screaming, as well as choking and coughing. The tears in his eyes burned even hotter and more acrid.

_An incendiary device. Tethimar has set off an incendiary device. He and his party will flee, and the rest of us will die._

“Steady, Serenity!” Taris shouted. As he reached out to Maia, a second boom echoed through the Untheileneise’meire, and the three of them clapped their hands to their ears.

“What the —” Valto, coughing and waving the smoke away from her face, tried to peer downward through all of it, seemingly without luck.

Maia dropped to his knees now, coughing and holding his throat. The smoke continued to billow thicker and thicker around the balcony; through it, he could hear the sounds of fighting resuming below, the unearthly keening of Nistho Athmaza — and then a long, drawn-out scream that he could _feel_ in the root of every hair on his body. _Merciful goddesses, what horror has Dazhis wrought now?_

After a seeming eternity, the smoke in the balcony began to thin. As it lifted, it curled around a tall, broad figure mounting the uppermost steps of the staircase to the balcony. Eshevis Tethimar’s once-pristine imperial clothing was befouled not only with wine now but also with blood, gore, and soot. Though he was coughing heavily from the smoke, his face was a crimson rictus of rage, and his sword was in his right hand.

“We’ll… finish the job that… Voreva began,” he said hoarsely.

Maia was still light-headed from the smoke, shaky-handed from the explosions, and trembling from the sight of his parents’ corpses come back to unnatural life. But, deep in his brain, the voice of Edrehasivar VII snarled: _Fight, hobgoblin. Get to thy damned feet and get thy blade._

Valto and Taris sprang out before him, tight to one another’s sides and their own blades to hand. Maia hauled himself up unsteadily with one hand on the balusters. As he reached down again toward his boot, he heard Tethimar’s laugh, no less contemptuous for that it twice broke up into coughs. “Think’st either of you we’re any more … vulnerable to a blade than to an arrow? Or that your … pigstickers are the equal of a sword?”

Maia looked up, Csevet’s blade still in his boot. Now that it was at close quarters, he could see that Tethimar’s sword was exquisite. Its hilt was gold worked into elaborate knots and curls, out of which winked rubies and shone onyxes. The blade was long and bright, with a water-wave pattern that glimmered under Cala’s lightball. It flashed once in the air, Valto howled in agony, and her own blade went clattering away from her across the balcony floor.

“We like a girl with… a broken wrist,” Tethimar huffed, grinning. “Less resistance.”

Before Tethimar could move again, Taris grabbed Valto’s good arm, shoved her off to the side, and screamed, “Valto! _Run!”_ And then he charged Tethimar with his own blade drawn.

Simultaneous with the pounding of Valto’s boots down the stairs, Maia heard a wet, choked gasp. Then Taris staggered backward from Tethimar, his own blade embedded just beneath his collarbone. Blood soaked his shirt as he wobbled, then dropped against the pile of cloaks.

Maia, at that moment, could think only, _Csevet was right. And so was Beshelar._

Tethimar smiled at Maia. As if this were naught but a nightmare in which he were able to read Maia’s thoughts, he said calmly, still rough-voiced but no longer coughing, “They teach soldiers that in the first week, thou know’st: how to turn one’s enemy’s blade against them. Of course, no fit emperor would scorn his nohecharei at his side for a pair of bumpkins with neither military training nor magic.”

“No fit regent defiles children, either,” said a cold voice, just as smoke-roughened, behind him.

Alarm surged through Maia. _“Csevet!”_

Csevet stood at the top of the staircase in his soldier’s garb, a buckler in his left hand and a sword not even half the size of Tethimar’s in his right.

“Ah, the hobgoblin’s whore!” Tethimar exclaimed in patent delight. “Whom we have reason to remember beyond that. We owe thee payment for the scar didst leave upon us ten years ago.”

“Csevet, _no,”_ Maia pleaded. When Csevet did not acknowledge the plea, Maia shouted, “Obey your emperor!”

Tethimar chuckled. “Canst not even get thy little bedwarmer to heed thine orders, canst thou?” And he lunged at Csevet.

Csevet, to his credit, held his ground far longer than Maia had imagined he could have. While Tethimar relied on brute strength, Csevet relied on speed. Though Tethimar moved quickly, Csevet moved even more so. While Tethimar was not dressed for battle, Csevet was. And, to Maia’s surprise, Csevet was able to deal Tethimar half a dozen long if shallow cuts to his arms and legs. _What of Dazhis’s protective spell?_ Maia wondered. _Does it protect Tethimar from any wounds at all, or from all but the most minor?_

But, ultimately, Csevet had not Tethimar’s long military training and experience. And though Tethimar’s larger sword could not lance through his clothing or helm, he took numerous blunt blows from the flat of it to his buckler, limbs, and torso that ate away at his stamina. When it finally swung into his knees, Csevet gasped and dropped to the floor.

“Art fortunate,” Tethimar said. “We will not dispatch thee right away, as we — and our Hounds — have much catching up to do with you.”

“That will not happen,” Maia said stonily. His ears rang and his head felt light as he dropped to one knee and, finally, reached into his right boot.

Tethimar glanced at the blade in Maia’s hand — unremarkable in size, unadorned in every way — and laughed hoarsely again. “Art any more trained in battle than thy pathetic archers?”

“No, we are not,” Maia said softly, walking forward with the knife in his hand.

Tethimar, as if the sight of Maia were the most hilarious thing in the world, stood with his sword hand relaxed and his other hand balled in a fist on his hip, chuckling. He began to raise his sword as Maia drew closer, then frowned as Maia dropped to his knees beside Csevet.

“What dost thou, idiot hobgoblin?”

Csevet knew. As Maia had approached, he had shakily pulled off his helm to lay it down beside him. As Maia put an arm around his shoulders now, he tilted his head back, baring the vulnerable white expanse of his throat.

“Saving him from thee,” Maia said, and he marveled that his voice did not tremble at all, and that neither did his blade hand as he raised it to Csevet’s throat.

Tethimar opened his mouth to say something further. His mouth did not form words but remained open, and a choked gurgle issued from it. Maia’s hand froze as he saw the point of a blade, long and thin, emerge from Tethimar’s belly, shoving blood and entrails out before it. Yet another foul smell was suddenly on the air.

Whoever stood behind Tethimar yanked the blade backward and out of him with a vengeance. Tethimar, his mouth making shapes of puzzlement, staggered forward several steps, then fell heavily face-down to the balcony floor in front of Maia and Csevet.

Where Tethimar had stood was now a slender figure in the topknot and uniform of an Untheileneise Guardsman, teeth bared, ears flat, face hard and red with rage. The guardsman dropped to his knees, hauled Tethimar’s corpse backward toward himself by the ankle, turned it over, and drove the long, thin blade into the ruptured belly over and over, strewing slimy ropes of intestine about the balcony.

“Dach’osmin!” Csevet shouted.

Maia blinked as he set his own blade down. _Dach’osmin?_

Csevet gently pushed Maia aside, then stood, wincing and moving as stiffly as he had after his first day of training. Heedless of the blade or of the viscera it splattered all around, he moved to the furious figure who wielded it and gripped both her wrists in his. “Dach’osmin Ceredin,” he said forcefully. “He is dead. You have won. Please stop; you will further distress His Serenity.”

Maia cleared his throat. “We are … we are fine, Csevet.”

Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin fell still. She stared down at her wrists in Csevet’s hands, and then at her blade. “Of course,” she muttered. “Our apologies, Serenity.” Her flushed skin seemed to darken further.

“We cannot find it in us to say you have anything to apologize for, Dach’osmin,” Maia hastily said. His mind silently added, _unless the Ceredada would like to reimburse the Office of the Archprelate for the cleaning of the balcony carpet and upholstery,_ and just at that moment it was the funniest thing that had ever occurred to him. He forced himself with the last remains of his strength not to giggle at it. His mirth might convince both Dach’osmin Ceredin and Csevet that Tethimar had been right about his fitness to be emperor.

There was a sudden groan, weak and bubbling, from behind him. “Mer Rishonar!” Maia exclaimed, turning to see Taris’s eyelashes fluttering. “He’s alive! We must get help for him.”

“Help is here,” yet another new voice declared from the top of the staircase. Two Untheileneise Guardsmen, neither of whom Maia recognized, moved into the balcony carrying a stretcher.

“The battle is over, then?” Maia asked.

“It is, Serenity, and your men have prevailed,” said one of the guardsmen as he and his fellow knelt by an unconscious Taris to gently shift him onto the stretcher. “Will he need to be carried down as well?” the first guardsman asked, nodding toward Csevet.

“Can you walk, Csevet?” Maia asked gently.

“We believe so,” Csevet grunted.

“Can you walk downstairs while leaning on us and His Serenity?” Dach’osmin Ceredin asked.

“Serenity, Dach’osmin, you needn’t do that,” the guardsman protested.

Maia waved his hand. “We insist upon it. Both of us. If further help is needed, you will be informed. Get Doctor Ushenar or whoever else is on duty for Mer Rishonar.”

The guardsman looked down at the mutilated corpse. “And … Dach’osmer Tethimar?”

“Can be left in place for now,” Maia snapped. “He’ll be going nowhere.”

“Serenity,” the guardsman said with lowered eyes and ears. Maia realized how sharply he’d spoken and was about to apologize when he forced himself to bite it back. An emperor, after all, does not apologize.

As he, Dach’osmin Ceredin, and Csevet waited for guardsmen and stretcher to clear the stairs, he briefly wondered again about the protective maz Dazhis had cast upon Tethimar. Csevet had been able to wound him lightly, but not deeply, while Dach’osmin Ceredin had been able to drive her blade clear through him. Had the battle below been won by the time he and Csevet fought? Had the raising of the corpses had drained enough of Dazhis’s mazeise energy that he could protect only the front of Tethimar’s body, and only against serious wounds? _Given the frail loyalties of some of his men, perhaps Dazhis should have thought to protect his back better,_ Maia thought grimly.

It took the three of them considerably longer to move downstairs, arm in arm, than it would have taken one hale person. But it did not take as long as Maia had feared; Csevet seemed to have mainly suffered sprains and contusions, not broken bones. Maia thought he was fortunate to be alive, never mind mostly sound.

As they stepped onto the Untheileneise’meire floor, Maia heard a call of “Serenity!” and saw Beshelar running toward him. A long laceration ran down his face, and his uniform was drenched in blood, but altogether he seemed to be in one piece. “Are you all right?”

“We are perfectly fine, Lieutenant. Are _you_ all right?” Maia peered at him. Remembering Tethimar gripping his sword with bleeding palms, he wondered if Beshelar had suffered injuries that had not yet made themselves known to him — or that he was purposefully concealing.

“Yes, Serenity, other than the wound to our face, which Kiru Athmaza has treated already. She is working with the medics of the Untheileneise Guard to perform triage among the wounded.”

Maia frowned. “‘Triage’?”

“Forgive us, Serenity — it is a military term. It means the division of the wounded into those who need immediate help, those who are beyond help, and those who can wait for help.” Beshelar turned and bowed to both Maia and Dach’osmin Ceredin. “Dach’osmin Ceredin. We are glad to see you also are alive and well. And you as well, Mer Aisava.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Csevet said weakly.

“Our thanks as well,” Dach’osmin Ceredin said. “Where may we take Mer Aisava? He needs to lie down, or at least sit.”

“Mer Aisava, please take our arm, and we will bring you to the triage area,” Beshelar said.

As he led Csevet away, there was a heavy rolling sound from another direction that did not seem like stone on stone again. Maia’s head swung about to see a group of half a dozen women surrounding a long metal tube of some kind on a low, wheeled platform. From what he could see, the tube was ornately carved, and the open front end of it was black with soot. And the tallest of the women surrounding it was —

“Vedero!”

Vedero’s head swung about, and her eyes went comically wide. But she regained her composure immediately and, with a brief word to one of her companions, strode over to Maia and Dach’osmin Ceredin.

“You are alive, Serenity,” she said, curtsying to him. Though her face gave nothing away, her eyes were remarkably animated. “And thou too, Csethiro. I feared for thee.”

Dach’osmin Ceredin took Vedero’s hands in hers. “And I for thee.”

“I was safe with Aizheän the entire time. But nobody knew where thou wert. Thy parents are deathly ill with grief; thou must find them and reassure them.”

A guilty look crossed Dach’osmin Ceredin’s narrow features. “I’m sure they are.” She turned to Maia and, with no skirts to lift, bowed low instead of curtsying. “Serenity, as your sister the archduchess says, we have duties to our house at the moment. We are glad, however, that we could be of service to you this evening. And …” She paused. “We thank you.”

It was Maia’s turn to take her hands. “Our houses are in mutual debt, it seems.”

She smiled, then, and he realized he had never seen her smile before. It was a charming smile. “So it seems, Serenity. A good evening to you both.” And she turned and strode off toward the exit.

“What … is _that?”_ Maia whispered to Vedero, staring at the tube.

“It is called a cannon, Serenity. It is a firearm often used in military battles. Since Winternight, we and the other members of our circle have been building it at the estate of our friend, Dach’osmin Tativin, in Thu-Tetar.”

Maia stared at her. “So… you had planned your own coup?”

“Well, not quite, Serenity. Dach’osmin Tativin had initially planned to build the cannon to defend her own estate, and a number of us had gathered there to help her and to avoid the notice of the Tethimada. However, one of our number, Osmin Shesin, has started an unofficial school for girls with mazeise talents. She’d brought two of her pupils along to Thu-Tetar, as they had nowhere else safe to go. Once we had begun to hear rumors that you were alive and abroad in the Elflands, Osmin Shesin asked the elder girl to scry for you. The girl saw you first in Ezho, with the former guardsmen, and then heading south. When you arrived at the Mazan’theileian, we drew our own conclusions.”

“Then… why did you not contact the Adremaza, either by mazeise or other means?” Maia asked.

Vedero’s mouth twitched. “The school is not only completely unaffiliated with the Athmaz’are, Serenity, but Osmin Shesin prefers they have no knowledge of it at all. There are some political issues, you see, involving not only the mazeise education of girls but potential competition between schools. And, if you will forgive us the blunt observation, Sehalis Adremaza is a highly political creature with an easily wounded sense of honor.”

“We have gathered as much,” Maia said drily. “Did you learn before this morning that we were all to strike here, on Midwinter Night?”

“The date was a logical conclusion, Serenity. As for the place, we were uncertain it would be in the Untheileneise’meire until Osmin Shesin’s student spotted you in the balcony this morning.”

Maia suppressed a sigh of relief that the young mazo had likely not risen early enough to spot any of them in the tunnel, or at the half-collapsed house near the Cethora. “We see. And … you didn’t know of Dach’osmin Ceredin’s whereabouts the entire time?”

Vedero shook her head. “No, Serenity. As we said, we feared for her. We have no idea where she has been for the last six weeks.”

Beshelar returned then. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing to Vedero, before dropping a deeper bow to Maia. “Serenity, we are sorry to interrupt your reunion with your sister, but there is much to report.”

“It is fine,” Vedero said. “The Captain of the Guard has asked us and our friends for witness statements. We are sure, Serenity, that we will catch up soon enough.” She dropped Maia another curtsy and gave him the only smile he had ever seen from her as well.

“Indeed,” Maia said. “Good evening, Vedero… and thank you.”

Her pale eyes glistened slightly as she nodded. Then she turned to rejoin her fellow inventresses.

“Serenity,” Beshelar said again. “We suggest that the two of us circulate among the wounded. It will provide comfort and encouragement to them to see you still alive, but it will also give you more information on what has happened down here on the floor of the Untheileneise’meire — and the same for ourself. When one is in the heat of battle, one tends to shut out everything but the enemy standing before one.”

“We see,” Maia said as Beshelar led him several dozen yards closer to the exit doors.

Pallets and chairs covered the floor in this section of the Untheileneise’meire. Among the colors of the Untheileneise Guard and the drab garb of Maia’s own soldiers, he spotted a few men in the flashy clothes of the Hounds, and a few others in the restrained dress of the lords allied with Tethimar. Whether they were seated in chairs or lying on pallets, the wrists and ankles of these men had been fettered.

Maia spotted Valto first; she sat upright in one of the chairs, an Untheileneise Guardsman winding a bandage about her wrist. In another sat one of the Hezhethoreise Guardsmen, his height and bulk making him appear to be seated in a child’s chair. His crested helmet was on the floor, and he was inclining his head to the right so that a medic could clean a wound to his left shoulder. Maia wondered if Vorzhis Gormened had sent them back into the battle once he and his wife were safe, or if they had volunteered to fight on their own.

Telimezh, to Maia’s vast relief, was in a third chair, pressing a great pad of cotton to the side of his head. Upon seeing Maia he attempted to stand.

“Sit _down,_ thou great idiot,” Beshelar shouted, but Telimezh had already stumbled and was grabbing the chair to steady himself. Beshelar rushed to him and pushed him back down into a sitting position.

“Lieutenant Telimezh,” Maia said with concern. “We presume that as you are sitting, not lying down, you will survive?”

Telimezh looked sheepish. “We took a clout to the head, Serenity. We did not lose consciousness, which we’re told is a good sign, but we are a bit dizzy nonetheless. We are very pleased to see you alive and well, and we would bow to you had we the ability to not shame ourself in trying.”

“As your counterpart has implied, that is entirely unnecessary,” Maia said. On impulse, he put his hand on Telimezh’s shoulder, taking care not to press too hard in case it was bruised. “Good work, Second Nohecharis.”

Telimezh blushed from his pointed chin to the tips of his ears. “Thank you, Serenity.”

Not far away from Telimezh was Csevet. Though Maia had seen him only a few minutes before, he could not resist hastening to his side and putting his hand on Csevet’s shoulder as well. Csevet turned his bruised face up to him and smiled. “‘Once more’ will have to wait, we fear, Serenity,” he said quietly.

“We were hardly thinking —” Maia began indignantly, then closed his mouth. Csevet’s smile had broadened. Maia shook his head. “Forgive us. It’s been … a night.”

“That it has,” Csevet observed. “We are fine, Serenity. We will hurt for days into weeks, we are sure, but no more than that. We should be able to hold a pen and a notebook well enough, and we look forward to performing such mundane tasks once again.”

“They can be performed whenever you feel ready, Csevet,” Maia said. “There is no rush.”

“If we felt unable to do so we would tell you, Serenity. And while we always welcome your attendance upon us, there are many others who need it right now far more than we do.” His smile faded.

Maia nodded and, dropping his hand from Csevet’s shoulder, peered about the space. He saw Baleär lying on a pallet, eyes closed but breathing, a bloodstained sheet draped over him up to his chin. Maia hastened to the sergeant’s side and dropped to his knees.

“He won’t stir for hours, Serenity,” a guardsman said from behind him. “The medic gave him a heavy draught of poppy juice.”

“Is he badly wounded?” Maia asked.

“He’ll live, and he’ll walk, and he may even be able to fight again. But he’ll be abed for weeks. He’s sustained broken bones and a few moderately deep sword cuts.”

“Thank you, guardsman,” Maia replied.

It was a common prognosis for the men who lay near Baleär, whether awake or sleeping under the influence of poppy juice. Others were less fortunate, in that their recovery would take months, and the survival of others was not even assured. Taris, the guardsman told Maia, fell into that last category. He had been taken away to a private room where Doctor Ushenar and one of the Tethimadeise physicians — all of whom had switched allegiances with alacrity, the guardsman added — labored to keep him alive. Maia thought of Biteän Rishonaran, and his emptied stomach knotted hard. _If Taris does not live,_ he thought, _I will fly back to Rishonee myself and beg her and Veris’s forgiveness._

Yet even such men were far more fortunate than those, another several yards away, whose bedsheets covered their faces.

Next to one such pallet, Nistho Athmaza knelt sobbing. In her dark hands she held a white one that protruded from beneath the sheet, its fingers rigid. Maia’s heart caught as if on thorns. _You deserved better, Zhadra Athmaza,_ he thought. _You may not have been dachenmaza, but you were truly an incarnation of Hanevis._

Behind Nistho knelt Thara Celehar, one hand on her shoulder, though she seemed not to register it at all. All the rage had drained out of his eyes, which looked as haunted as they had the first time Maia had ever seen him. Maia wondered if, now that the battle was over, Celehar indeed feared the judgment of the Council of Prelates upon him — or if he believed it should have been him, not Zhadra, under the bloody sheet. _May Ulis, and Cstheio Caireizhasan, grant thee the insight to see that it should have been neither of you, and that thy death would have made not a whit of difference._

Maia turned his head back to the living and spotted Kiru Athmaza moving among the many wounded with a masklike expression and clouded eyes. She stooped by the side of a fettered Hound who lay on his side, and she spoke a few words to him that Maia could not hear.

The Hound spat in her face. She rose again silently, her face hardened beneath the gobbet of spittle she disdained to wipe from her cheek, and she turned to attend to a patient in the uniform of an Untheileneise Guardsman.

Maia stared after her. An idea was forming in his mind, but it was not quite the time or place to express it. He put it aside for later and continued to walk about the impromptu combination of hospital and morgue, Beshelar at his heels.

Sobs, choked and abject, reached his ears. They seemed not to come from any of the chairs or pallets, but from behind a pillar. Past the pillar, Maia could see part of an irregular shape of blue. His scalp prickling with dread, he rounded the pillar and looked down.

From behind his spectacles, Cala’s tears dripped freely onto the unmoving face of Dazhis Athmaza, whose body lay in his lap. Blood had run from his ears, nose, and mouth, as it had from Zhadra’s; it contrasted starkly with his skin, far too white even for that of an elf. His eyes were open, and his irises had turned a murky grey, making them barely indistinguishable from the widely dilated pupils. Maia realized, apropos of nothing, that he did not remember the color of Dazhis’s eyes in life.

“Why?” Cala said in his tear-choked voice, staring down at his dead fellow maza-nohecharis. “Why, Dazhis?”

But Dazhis gave him no answer.


	16. The Archprelate’s Suite

Maia supposed he should be thankful — and, indeed, he was — this had not turned out to be the shortest night of his life. But, over the ensuing hours, it occurred to him many times over that it certainly felt like the longest, surpassing even that of the underground vigil before his coronation.

As he and Beshelar stood in helpless witness to Cala’s grief, Maia heard footsteps behind him and the clearing of a throat. He turned about to see a Untheileneise Guardsman bowing low to him.

“Serenity. Several of our fellow guardsmen are about to bring the enemy survivors down to the Nevennamire, where they will be securely held until they may be put on trial.”

Maia frowned. “Are they hale enough for that?”

The guardsman looked surprised at the question. “They are; the ones who survived the battle have only minor injuries. But…” His mouth pulled tight. “We must inform you that there are a number of people in the Nevennamire who were ordered to be imprisoned therein without trial by Dach’osmer Tethimar, including half a dozen nobles. They do not fare well, having been there for weeks now. Perhaps you would like to review their cases?”

“Do you know their names?”

“Serenity, the nobles are Count Thuva Bazhevel, Dach’osmer Dalera Bazhevar, Dach’osmin Stano Bazhevin, Osmer Setheris Nelar, Osmin Loran Duchenin, and Osmer Nurevis Chavar.”

 _Merciful goddesses._ As little regard as he had for any of them save Nurevis, and that regard now compromised by Lord Chavar’s deceit, he could think of no reason they should have been left to literally rot under the court. Not even Setheris. With a deep breath he said, “Have all of them, noble or common, taken into the care of the court’s physicians. If reasons are found to detain any of them in the next forty-eight hours, we imagine they will not have gone anywhere, being so debilitated.”

The guardsman bowed again. “Serenity.”

“Before you go, Guardsman, would you or one of your fellows please bring us to our nephew?”

“Of course, Serenity. Please give us a moment to pass your command along, and then we will bring you to him.”

A minute later he led Maia and Beshelar back across the Untheileneise’meire and into the Archprelatial offices. They passed through a sparsely appointed antechamber and a heavy inner door, then traversed a long corridor. At its end stood yet another massive door; the guardsman rapped upon it.

“Who’s there?” a young woman’s voice called out anxiously.

“A guardsman accompanying His Serenity — Edrehasivar the Seventh — and his soldier-nohecharis,” the guardsman said.

“Dach’osmer Tethimar —”

“— is dead,” the guardsman replied flatly.

There were murmured voices and footfalls within, then a heavy scraping sound and the click of a lock. Canon Thorchelezhen opened the door to them. “Serenity. Thank all the gods,” she said emphatically, prostrating herself in a none-too-graceful swoop.

The floor was stone, the room cold, and Maia winced on her behalf. “Please, that is not necessary,” he said.

“Serenity,” the guardsman said, bowing. “Your Highness, Your Grace,” he added. Then he disappeared back down the long hallway.

The room seemed to be the personal office of the Archprelate, judging from the desk that dominated it. A chair stood before it, evidently for guests, and its counterpart seemed to have been braced under the door handle and just now removed by Canon Thorchelezhen. In addition to her, standing within the room were the male junior canon, the Archprelate, Idra, and the nohecharis who had accompanied Idra to the altar. Each of them dropped Maia a deep bow.

“Your Grace,” Maia said to the Archprelate with a nod, closing the heavy door behind him. He turned his focus upon his nephew. “Idra, are you well?”

Once again, Idra’s breeding did not fail him. He met Maia’s gaze firmly and said, “We are unhurt, cousin.”

“That is patently untrue,” Maia said sharply.

Idra’s mouth opened slightly. He closed it immediately and said, “We were not hurt by the broken glass, and, as you saw, we were taken to this room immediately afterward, before any combat commenced.”

 _Didst expect him to utter before thee, the Archprelate, and the others that Tethimar has been violating him these last few months, moonwit?_ Maia suppressed the apology that came to his lips, nodded, and said, “We suppose nobody has told you, but your sisters are alive and well.”

Idra closed his eyes and, for a moment, seemed about to faint. “Thank the gods. Where are they?”

“At the Mazan’theileian, under the protection of mazeise wards. They would be asleep by now. Tomorrow, you will all be reunited in the Alcethmeret.”

“The Alcethmeret?” Idra echoed in confusion.

“We are your closest living kin now, and thus your guardian. We therefore intend to take you all into our household.”

Idra nodded, looking grateful and overwhelmed and exhausted all at once. Maia wished he could put his arm around the boy, but he reminded himself that they had not gotten to know one another very well before the first coup, and in the presence of the clerics such a gesture would have been inappropriate in any case.

He turned his attention to the man in the dual-seal baldric. “You are Prince Idra’s nohecharis?”

“Yes… Serenity,” the soldier said hastily, bowing to him again.

“May we ask your name, please?”

“Sergeant Chunota Vethodar, Serenity.” He licked his lips; he was blinking rapidly.

“Were you selected from the Untheileneise Guard?”

“No, Serenity. Capt— we mean, Dach’osmer Tethimar appointed us himself. We served under his command on the Evressai Steppes.”

He was in his late twenties, his accent was that of central Thu-Istandaär, and his short, compact form under his uniform rippled with muscle. Something in the stance of his body, in how he began to move his right arm, seemed vaguely wrong to Maia in a way he could not articulate even to himself —

The impact of Beshelar’s open hand at his back sent Maia stumbling into the Archprelate’s desk. Before he could right himself he heard a solid, meaty _thunk_ followed immediately by a wet, bubbling groan and two brief, almost staccato shrieks. He stood up and turned just in time to see Beshelar yank his sword from Vethodar’s chest with another unpleasantly visceral sound. As a short, broad blade clattered to the floor from his open hand, Vethodar sunk down after it, his eyes wide and puzzled.

“Forgive us for making you all witnesses to this,” Beshelar snarled, his jaw rigid and his eyes blazing.

Idra turned his back to the rest of them and began to retch. The Archprelate braced his arm around the boy’s shoulders, then looked over at his two canons. Their faces were slack with horror, their ears pinned back, but they gave him brisk nods and disappeared into an inner door. The acrid stench of vomit filled the small room. Maia’s stomach fluttered in sympathy but did no more than that. He felt, far more than anything else, a profound fatigue. How many more deadly traps had Tethimar lain for him, intentionally or not?

“W-we’re sorry, Your Grace,” Idra gasped as he straightened up.

“Do not be, Your Highness,” the Archprelate said. “Many a grown man would have reacted the same way.” The tightness of his voice suggested that he had barely been able not to do so himself.

“Are you all right, Serenity?” Beshelar asked. “We are sorry to have shoved you but we saw no other way to protect you.”

“We are,” Maia said wearily. “And you need not apologize for having done your job.”

The canons returned quickly, Thorchelezhen with towels and bowl of water, her male counterpart with a mop and bucket. As he set the latter down beside the puddle of vomit, Beshelar said quickly, “We suggest, Your Grace, that your office be left as it is until the Guard has looked it over thoroughly.” The male canon looked up in surprise, but at the Archprelate’s nod he drew back to lean against the wall.

Thorchelezhen paused before Idra. “Does Your Highness need any assistance…” She trailed off, uncertain as to how to proceed.

Idra merely shook his head, his throat working, and held out his hands. Thorchelezhen looked as though she wanted to put her arms around him. She merely handed him the bowl and a towel. He washed his face and hands, then held the items back out to her. “Thank you,” he whispered, his face still ashen.

She bowed to him, then held another towel out to Beshelar. “Thank you, canon,” Beshelar said, wiping the blood from his hands and sword on it.

“Would you both please go alert the Guard?” the Archprelate asked the canons. “We will take His Serenity and His Highness into our suite for now.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

As the canons departed, the Archprelate, his arm once again around Idra’s shoulder, led him into the doorway the canons had passed through earlier. Maia followed with Beshelar at his back. Beyond was a chilly receiving room of plain wooden furniture with thin black cushions; there was nothing on the walls but gaslights and a few religious icons. “Please, be seated,” the Archprelate said. Maia and Idra sat themselves on a long bench, while Beshelar stood against the wall next to Maia.

A small, elderly man in the clothing of a manservant appeared at an inner doorway. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing. He peered closely at Maia, then stared. “Oh. Oh, my.” And he prostrated himself on the wooden floor.

Maia didn’t bother to repress his sigh. “Please stand.”

“Serenity,” the old man quavered, getting up stiffly.

“Hemeset,” the Archprelate said, “would you please bring our guests some water, as well as something light from the kitchen?”

“We are not hungry,” Maia and Idra said in unison.

“The guardsmen may keep us here a while, and it has been an exhausting evening so far for all. An you change your minds, Serenity, Your Highness, the food will be at hand.”

Hemeset departed. Before the Archprelate could speak again, Maia said, “We overheard your argument with Dach’osmer Tethimar from the emperor’s balcony. We are under the impression you did not collaborate with him willingly, but we would have confirmation from you.”

The Archprelate’s head rose sharply. “We did not, Serenity.” Maia was uncertain but he thought he could see a flicker of fear in Teru Tethimar’s eyes.

“He tried to protect us as best he could,” Idra said. “It angered Dach’osmer Tethimar greatly.”

“We thank you for that, Your Grace,” Maia said.

“We appreciate your gratitude, Serenity, but we viewed it as our duty, both to House Drazhada and to a young boy with no parents to shelter him. We only wish we could have been more effective.” Idra stared down at the floor. The Archprelate looked at him, and Maia was struck by the pain and guilt upon his face.

Then he remembered his other debt to the Archprelate. “Your Grace, we also thank you for the icon that you sent along with Mer Aisava.”

For the first time that evening, the Archprelate smiled, though it was a weary smile. “You are ever so welcome, Serenity. We are glad the icon reached you safely, and we hope you have derived some comfort from it.”

“Indeed we have.” It was, he recalled, in his cloak pocket, and his cloak remained on the floor of the balcony. He would have to remind someone — Csevet? Beshelar? — to retrieve it.

There was a knock on the outer door. The Archprelate rose and opened it to Canon Thorchelezhen, who said, “Your Grace, the Guard would like to speak with you, His Serenity, His Highness, and His Serenity’s First Nohecharis regarding the — the occurrence in your office. And to His Serenity regarding other matters as well.”

The next hour was given over to the four of them, and both canons, providing testimony to two guardsmen. The clerics and Idra added their own earlier impressions of Chunota Vethodar: his roughness of manner, his propensity to both offense taking and violence, his fanatical devotion to Dach’osmer Tethimar, and his overall indifference to Idra’s wellbeing beyond the barest scope of his duties. At some point Hemeset re-entered and laid down a tray, but Maia barely registered it.

“Thank you all for your time and effort,” the higher-ranking guardsman said at last, closing his notebook. “Serenity, could we please also ask you how you and your companions came to be in the Untheileneise’meire?”

“Could we perhaps … speak in the Archprelate’s office, alone?” Maia asked, looking worriedly at Idra. “Would that be all right, Your Grace?”

“Of course, Serenity,” the Archprelate said. “Please take your time.”

It took more than an additional hour, though mercifully the Guard had already examined the office, removed the corpse, and permitted the male junior canon to mop the floor. As Beshelar stood behind his chair, Maia provided the guardsmen with as few details as possible about his experiences prior to arriving at the Mazan’theileian, and he let them think he and his companions had entered the Untheileneise’meire by its main entrance in the early-morning hours. The guardsmen seemed mainly interested in the actions and remarks of Tethimar, his Hounds, and his other allies. Maia tried to remember all he could of such matters. He omitted his realization of what Tethimar had done to Idra, and in his mention of the argument he had witnessed he portrayed the Archprelate as clearly opposed to his cousin but powerless to rein him in.

He and Beshelar returned to the Archprelate’s receiving room. Hemeset had set out a platter of dried fruit, soft cheese, and small savory biscuits, accompanied by watered wine. Idra seemed to have eaten a nominal amount, Maia noted with relief. He found to his surprise that his belly was clamoring for some measure of sustenance as well.

The Archprelate smiled again as Maia picked out a few tidbits for himself. “We are glad to see your appetite has returned, Serenity.”

“We do not anticipate being ravenous for quite some time to come,” Maia said ruefully. “But, obviously, we have much work ahead of us, and it cannot be done on a completely empty stomach. Cousin, we are glad to see yours is not empty, either.” Idra gave him a faint smile.

As Maia nibbled, Idra asked after his sisters’ health. Maia answered honestly, glad that he could do so without either circumlocution or sorrow. When he had finished eating he set down his plate and turned back to the Archprelate. “Your Grace, we are sorry to impose upon you further, but we are uncertain of the state of the Alcethmeret just now, and we cannot think of anywhere else we might have a private moment alone with Prince Idra. Could we please ask you to excuse us for a while?”

Idra started like a hare. The Archprelate was already rising. “Of course, Serenity. When you are done, please call out, and we will return.”

When it was only the two of them and Beshelar in the room, Maia turned to Idra and said, “I don’t know what your mother said of me to you and your sisters, when — before Winternight.”

Idra blinked at Maia’s manner of address. He said, “She did not speak at all of you to us” — plural, not formal.

Something in Maia’s chest eased slightly. “I would have you call me Cousin Maia, or simply Maia. I’m but four years your elder; ‘uncle’ would be seem rather stuffy as a title.”

It got a faint smile from Idra. “Cousin Maia I shall call thee, then.”

Encouraged, Maia put his hand on the boy’s shoulder at last. “Idra… I realize we don’t know one another well. But it was obvious to me even from the balcony that art ill, and as I sit here with thee it is even more patent. It is not surprising, given how many loved ones hast lost in the last several months, and that wert made emperor against thy will. I would like to see thee in better health and spirits, and I will do all I can to bring that about.”

Idra did not reply at first. Maia could see thought chasing thought in his pale Drazhada eyes, and the tension in Idra’s ears and lips and jaw. He continued, “If there is anything wish’st to confide in me, whether now or in future, please don’t think art burdening me, nor shouldst be ashamed for speaking of it.”

“I…” Idra licked his lips. After a second, he said, “He’s truly dead?”

Maia’s gut clenched. “Yes. He is. I watched him be run through with a sword.”

“And Dazhis Athmaza did not revive him?” Idra pressed.

“Dazhis Athmaza is dead as well.”

Idra’s eyes suddenly blazed. _“Good._ Would I could have seen both of them fall.”

Maia caught his breath, trying to suppress another ugly suspicion that had arisen in his mind. He said nothing. Within a moment the fire seemed to die out in Idra, leaving the same jumpy, wounded boy in its wake. He gave a soft laugh. “I hated them both. I hated Dach’osmer Tethimar especially. But sometimes I hated Dazhis Athmaza more.”

“Did they … use you ill?” Maia asked quietly.

Idra cast his eyes down to the floor again. Barely audibly, he said, “Dazhis did not use me ill.”

Maia swallowed, then once more waited. Finally Idra said, still looking downward, “He was… very concerned with my propriety, that I behave ‘like an emperor should,’ was how he would put it. And that I never give any hint that anything might be wrong. There was one morning he came to my bedchamber to take me to breakfast after the edocharei had dressed me, and I — I had a bruise on my throat. He scolded the edocharei for not having covered it better with paint and powders.”

Maia’s stomach lurched. He asked, “The edocharei? Nemer, Esha, and Avris?” He wondered if any of them had suffered at Tethimar’s hands or those of his men.

Idra shook his head. “No, two Tethimadeise edocharei. I’ve never heard those names before.”

Maia nodded, though Idra could not have marked it with his eyes still on the floor. He wondered if his own edocharei were still alive, if they had fled Cetho.

Another silent moment or two passed. Idra finally lifted his head and met Maia’s eyes again. “I’m glad they’re both dead. And Vethodar too.” This time he spoke without fury; it was a flat, weary statement of fact.

“Didst have Second Nohecharei?”

“Not as such. I don’t know why I wasn’t assigned a second maza-nohecharis. When Dazhis and Vethodar were off duty, men loyal to Dach’osmer Tethimar watched me. It wasn’t always the same men. Some were new guardsmen, some weren’t.”

“Needst not have nohecharei anymore,” Maia said softly.

“I am glad of that,” Idra said, just as quietly and without tone.

Another minute slipped by. Then Maia said, “If it is agreeable to thee, I would fain take thee back to the Alcethmeret tonight and have my steward find thee a bedchamber. As I said to the Archprelate, I don’t know what state the Alcethmeret is in, but it would be the safest place for thee, lest any others such as Vethodar still be about.”

Idra hung his head again. “If I may please make a request, cousin….”

“Of course.”

“I…. would prefer the plainest bedchamber possible. Even if it is not entirely clean.” Even more softly, Idra added, “No sharadansho silk.”

A hard, hot knot of rage began to form under Maia’s ribs. He forced himself to say calmly, “Wilt be placed into a simple room, and I shall ask Merrem Esaran, an she remains in her post —”

“She does.”

“Good; I will ask that thy bed be made up with linen or cotton sheets and wool blankets. No silk or satin or the like.”

Idra nodded, and he raised his head once more to hold Maia’s gaze. “Thank thee, Cousin Maia.”

“Art very welcome,” Maia said, and rose to call for the Archprelate.

***

“Serenity,” Esaran said as she dropped gracefully to her knees before him.

“It is good to see you again, Merrem Esaran,” Maia said. She rose, and he winced at the ring of fading bruises around her right eye. He hoped her age and her severe mien had protected her from the worst of the Tethimadeise depredations.

“Your Highness,” she said, bowing to Idra. “Serenity, we understand from Mer Aisava that you are taking His Highness and his sisters into your household?”

“Mer Aisava is here?” Maia exclaimed. “He was injured tonight!”

“Yes, Serenity. He wished to see who remained on our staff, and he wanted to ascertain that you encountered as little discomfort in the Alcethmeret as possible.”

Maia bit back an impulse to confirm Esaran’s unspoken but obvious opinion that Csevet was an utter idiot for returning to his duties immediately. He said, “If you would, please put our cousin up in the plainest bedchamber possible, at his request. He would prefer linen, cotton, or wool; no silk or satin. As for ourself, an the imperial bedchamber requires cleaning or other attention, we would be happy to sleep in any other chamber you deem appropriate.” 

“Mer Aisava was insistent that the imperial bedchamber be cleaned and aired out, and its bedlinens changed.”

“Aired out? In this weather?”

“Yes, Serenity,” Esaran said emphatically.

Well. Given how cold the entire Untheileneise Court was, perhaps it would not have made much of a difference to the room’s temperature. If Maia required ten more blankets, he was sure they could be found.

Esaran summoned an elven maid whom Maia did not recognize, skittish and with bruises to her face. She knelt with alacrity, and he thought he saw relief in her green eyes. He wondered if Isheian were still alive. Esaran relayed Maia’s request to the maid briefly, and she nodded and rose.

“I will see thee in the morning, then, cousin,” Idra said. “Again, I thank thee.”

Maia reached out and took Idra’s hands in his. Idra gave a bit of a start at first, but then Maia felt his fingers be gripped in return.

Beshelar had been rejoined by a somber Cala; they both followed Maia as he in turn followed Esaran up the spiral staircases. At this hour there were fewer servants about than the very first time he had ascended through the tower; each and every one dropped to their knees with a quiet but heartfelt, “Serenity.” Maia, exhausted though he was, nodded to each.

It seemed forever before they reached the imperial bedchamber. It was, unsurprisingly, quite cold, though the windows had since been closed and a fire now burned in the grate. But the air within smelled of nothing more than wind and snow, and the bed-hangings were as Maia remembered them.

Two men in Drazhadeise livery, one quite young and another middle-aged, knelt to him on the thick carpet. “Serenity,” the elder said, “we are Sheris Mitova, and this is our apprentice Helera Corvezh. We were assigned to Vare — forgive us, to Prince Idra by Dach’osmer Tethimar.” The man’s voice shook, as did his apprentice’s clasped hands before him.

Maia nodded at them. “We would greatly appreciate your assistance in preparing us for bed. Please know that we do not bear any ill will against you for how you obtained your posts.”

Their relief was palpable. “Thank you, Serenity,” Helera said breathlessly. His voice was quite high for his apparent age, and Maia wondered whether he had reached his majority.

“Serenity, Dachensolei Ebremis and Atterezh are aware of your return,” Esaran informed Maia. “Dachensol Ebremis has readjusted the menus to suit your tastes once again, and Dachensol Atterezh will be ready to attire you in the morning.”

“Very good, Merrem Esaran,” Maia said. He was relieved to hear that the Masters of both the Kitchens and the Wardrobe were alive and at their posts, and he hoped they, too, had not suffered unduly in the last several weeks.

He spent the next forty-five minutes in the bathing chamber, which was far warmer at the moment than his bedchamber owing to the edocharei having closed its door and built the fire up quite high. Cala and Beshelar, knowing nothing of Mitova or Corvezh other than that they had been appointed by Tethimar, insisted upon watching them minister to Maia without the panels of frosted glass in the way. Exhausted, suddenly overwarm, and having had his modesty quite obliterated by the last several months of his life, Maia did not make even a token objection.

By the time they had dried him off, put him into a nightshirt, and braided his hair for sleep, his bedchamber was tolerable if not exactly cozy. Blearily he let them lead him to the bed, turn down the sheets and blankets, and tuck him in as if he slept in the Alcethmeret’s nursery. The thought provided him with a certain wry amusement he had not the energy to express just now, even had it been proper to do so.

Outside the bed-hangings with their familiar wrestling cats — _I’ve missed these cats,_ he realized — he could perceive Beshelar dimming the gaslights.

“Good night, Serenity,” Cala said on the other side of the bed, his voice husky. “And welcome home.”

“Thank you, Cala,” Maia said sleepily. “Good night.”


	17. The Alcethmeret

He opened his eyes to the glow of the bed-hangings in late-winter sunlight, and he blinked in confusion.

It took him much, much longer than it had the very first morning he had awoken here to realize he was not dreaming. The entirety of the preceding day seemed much more like a dream, now, than had the time from Csevet’s arrival at Edonomee to when Maia had first fallen asleep in this bed. And there were so many places he could have awoken instead. The lads’ dormitory at Parugo. The root cellar at Talorathee. The frozen, unsheltered earth of the badlands. To name just a few.

“Serenity?” he heard Telimezh call quietly.

Maia parted the bed-hangings. “Lieutenant Telimezh? We thought you were still recovering, and we expected to find Lieutenant Beshelar and Cala Athmaza still here.”

Telimezh shook his head. “We relieved them in the middle of the night, Serenity. They were both exhausted, especially Cala Athmaza.”

“You do not look much better, in sooth,” Maia said. Telimezh’s eyes seemed rather red, and his color was not good.

“We slept for several hours. Our head aches a bit still, but we are fully capable of defending you. Cala said that the Adremaza is in the process of appointing a second maza-nohecharis for you. In the meantime, we and your First Nohecharei will rotate our duties in order to protect you as completely as possible.”

Maia nodded as Helera Corvezh entered the room. “Serenity,” the young edocharis said, bowing; he still looked nervous but not outright terrified. “A courier has arrived with a delivery from Dachensol Habrobar.”

“Oh,” Maia said, forcing his eyes not to widen. “If you would please bring us what Dachensol Habrobar has sent?”

The familiar little pouch of quilted silk made Maia’s heart beat even faster. When the heavy circle of the ring tumbled out of it into his palm, he could have danced — clumsily, to be sure — around his bedchamber. _Sheveän must have returned the ring to Habrobar,_ he thought in surprise. He could easily imagine her having ordered it to be melted down, but he supposed that if Lisethu Pevennin’s ring had remained intact for five centuries, his late sister-in-law had likely been bound by law or custom to keep his own in the same state. He slipped it onto his finger again. The cat-serpent stared up at him again, savage and perfect.

He had no sooner sat down to breakfast — he’d missed the gigantic, ancient samovar on the sideboard too, he realized — then the door opened again to admit Csevet, carrying a stack of letters. “Good morning, Serenity,” he almost sang, setting them down next to Maia’s bowl of oatmeal with fresh cream and dried strawberries. Despite his sanguine tone, he continued to move stiffly.

 _I retract what I said about thee being the furthest thing from a fool,_ Maia thought. What he said was, “How do you feel this morning, Mer Aisava?”

“Remarkably well,” Csevet said, though a pinched look flitted across his features. Maia thought he must have just been reminded of the existence of a certain bruise or strained muscle.

Other than the marks upon his face and hands that had been dealt to him over the past week, he did, in fact, look well. His color was high, his eyes bright. He once again wore the grey Drazhadeise silks of his post, he had buffed his fingernails and added a coat of clear lacquer to them, and he wore a small comb of carved verashme in his freshly washed hair. _Not long enough again yet for tashin sticks,_ Maia thought. He wondered when his own would be so. Cropped hair had been, he had to admit, quite convenient in his exile, but he rather missed what had been shorn from his head.

“And you, Serenity?” Csevet was saying. His expression and tone were as neutral as ever it had been, but Maia could perceive the fondness in his eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

“Far better than we had any right to, in sooth. Have you heard about Prince Idra’s nohecharis?”

Csevet’s face darkened. “That was why we hastened to the Alcethmeret last night, Serenity. We and Merrem Esaran dismissed a number of servants whose loyalty we could not be assured of. Unfortunately there was no one else to do the work of the Tethimadeise edocharei.”

“They did a splendid job, and we do not fear any retaliation from them,” Maia said emphatically.

“Serenity,” Csevet said. Maia noted the lack of firm agreement paired with the disinclination to press the matter. “On a purely positive note, we see your signet ring has been returned to you just in time for you to review this morning’s correspondence.”

Maia eyed the pile of letters as he would have eyed a fly in his oatmeal. “It seems we have truly returned,” he said with a dry ruefulness. “It is rather remarkable how much of it awaits us, so soon. We take it you have gone through them already?”

“We have, Serenity. You will be relieved to know that the vast majority merely express relief, congratulations, well wishes, and loyalty. They need no more than a summary reply, and they can wait for that. However, there are seven that require your immediate attention.”

Csevet had already divided the stack by such criteria; he lifted the seven letters from the top and set the rest aside. The open envelopes of the first two bore the seal of the Athmaz’are. The first was from Sehalis Adremaza, expressing his felicitations and mentioning that he would come to the Alcethmeret late in the day with the dach’osmichen and a new second maza-nohecharis in tow. The second was from Kiru Athmaza.

> _To his Imperial Serenity, Edrehasivar VII, greetings._
> 
> _We are pleased with and grateful for the outcome of yesterday’s events. We wished to inform you as promptly as possible that Mer Rishonar has regained consciousness and has asked for you. He remains very weak and must rest the majority of the time, but we would not disapprove if you were to visit him briefly at bedside; we believe it would be a boon to his morale and would thus speed his healing._
> 
> _With fealty and great respect,  
>  Kiru Athmaza_

Maia closed his eyes. “Thank all the gods.”

“Indeed, Serenity,” Csevet said, and when Maia reopened his eyes he saw his own relief plainly echoed on Csevet’s face.

The next missive was from Echelo Esaran, laying out the increase in the household budget that would be necessary to provide for Idra and his sisters; it required only Maia’s seal. Then there was correspondence from the Corazhas regarding the appointment of a new Lord Chancellor.

“Who filled that role after Uleris Chavar was killed?” Maia asked.

“A Tethimadeise partisan, Serenity. He is now in the Esthoramire.”

“We see.” It had been a while since Maia had been forced to consider the minutiae of government. He briefly reviewed his memories of the various Witnesses, then said, “We would suggest Lord Berenar for the post.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said. “Do you wish to announce it at the Corazhas yourself, or should a letter be sent? It is a choice unlikely to meet with opposition.”

“Send a letter to the Corazhas, then, please,” Maia said, taking another sip of his tea. “As well as one to Lord Berenar alone.”

“Yes, Serenity.”

The next letter was from Min Vechin, effusively expressing joy at Maia’s return to the throne and hoping that his interest in the work of the Clocksmiths’ Guild regarding the proposed bridge over the Istandaärtha would continue. Excitement rekindled in him at the thought of the bridge, tinged though it was with mixed emotions about Min Vechin herself. He penned her a brief response in the affirmative and affixed his seal to it.

The next letter was from Dach’osmin Ceredin, written in the old warrior’s alphabet of the barzhad:

> TO THE EMPEROR EDREHASIVAR VII DRAZHAR, GREETINGS & CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOUR RECAPTURE OF YOUR THRONE & WISHES FOR THE CONTINUED ENDURANCE OF YOUR REIGN. WE ARE NOT ONLY GLAD TO HAVE BEEN OF SERVICE TO YOU IN THE DISPOSAL OF  ESHEVIS TETHIMAR, BUT WE APPRECIATE YOUR HAVING GIVEN US THE OPPORTUNITY TO SETTLE OUR OWN PERSONAL SCORE WITH THE MAN. HE WAS A BLOT UPON THE ETHUVERAZ & HE HAD WELL-EARNED HIS UNDIGNIFIED DEMISE. IF THERE BE ANY OTHER SERVICE WE CAN RENDER YOU—BEYOND OUR LOYALTY & FIDELITY, WHICH YOU HAVE ALREADY—YOU NEED ONLY SAY THE WORD.

Her bluntness amid all the formalities, circumlocutions, and flatteries that characterized the other letters made him smile. So did the elaborate interlocked monogram with which she had signed the letter — as with the barzhad, it was a mark of the cavaliers of old. 

He looked up, and his smile faltered at Csevet’s expression. The last letter was in Csevet’s hand, and upon seeing the Nelada seal at the bottom Maia recoiled almost physically. He read it through, set it down, and fought the urge to rest his head in his hands. “We suppose that our cousin deserves an answer, one way or the other.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said, neither approving nor disapproving.

“Please arrange an audience in the Tortoise Room.” The Tortoise Room would not afford him the cold, public grandeur of the other audience halls, but it would provide him the comfort, and thus confidence, he would need. Odd, he thought, that after all he had survived he still feared for his confidence before Setheris. “Within the next few days, although today of course would not be ideal.”

Not long after breakfast, Csevet ushered Lord Berenar into the Tortoise Room. “Serenity,” Berenar said with a deep bow. “First and foremost, we are most relieved to see you returned and unharmed. Second, we are very grateful for your support of us for the post of Lord Chancellor.”

“We are very glad to see you again as well, Lord Berenar,” Maia said, “and we believe you will be more than adequate to the duties thereof. We assume your visit is of an urgent nature, however?”

“It is, Serenity. We and Captain Orthema have obtained detailed signed confessions from the surviving co-conspirators, primarily Dach’osmer Odris Ubezhar, and Mer Thara Celehar has Witnessed for the ones who were slain. As it transpires, the wreck of the _Wisdom of Choharo_ was not what Dach’osmer Tethimar had planned.”

“Please tell us more,” Maia said, squaring his shoulders. The back of his neck had begun to prickle.

“To be clear, Serenity, he did indeed plot the deaths of your father and half-brothers. But he had not intended them to die until after his own wedding.”

Berenar proceeded to lay out the specifics of Tethimar’s initial plans. “The airship workers in Amalo double-crossed him, whereupon he had them poisoned. Mer Celehar has told us what he knows from his investigations on your behalf in Amalo, and he has offered to Witness for the dead workers, either in Amalo or here. From what he has told us, we suspect their motives were entirely political. In any event, Serenity, you were far from the only one to thwart Dach’osmer Tethimar’s plans.”

“Our sister the Archduchess and Dach’osmin Ceredin certainly threw their own separate spanner wrenches into his works,” Maia said drily.

“Well, yes, Serenity,” Berenar said with a faint smile. “That acknowledged, we infer from what Dach’osmer Ubezhar has told us — although he did not say so explicitly — that Dach’osmer Tethimar’s mind fixed upon you as the cause of all his recent woes. He was therefore not content to let you live out your life in the monastery up north but hired an assassin to make sure you could never regain the throne again.”

Maia said nothing. Eshevis Tethimar seemed to have hated him, and for doing no more than what Maia had felt were the right things to do. With some irony, he recalled the cousin who had also hated him for no fault of Maia’s own and his acerbic monologues on the nature of political power. From time to time Setheris had quoted an ancient Porcharneise political philosopher: _Let them hate, so long as they fear._

In sooth, Maia did not want anyone to hate _or_ fear him. This, he understood in his bones now, was a sentiment no emperor could afford to indulge. The best he could do was rule so that as few people as possible either hated or feared him.

Berenar continued: “We expect the conspiracy to die with the surviving Tethimadeise collaborators, all of whom will be condemned. To make certain it does, Serenity, we would strongly advise you to demand oaths of loyalty in person from the next head of each implicated house. We also advise that House Tethimada be extirpated. A reasonable portion of its holdings should go toward Eshevis Tethimar’s unwed sisters as dowries, but you may wish to consider withholding some of the funds as restitution for the nobles he imprisoned and for anyone else he may have wronged while regent. House Tethimada is wealthy enough that the dowries would remain exceedingly generous.”

 _The one he has wronged the most has no need of his gold,_ Maia thought with a fresh stab of fury. But he suppressed it from his voice, face, and ears as he asked Berenar, “Who will assume guardianship of the unwed Tethimadeise daughters, now that their brother is dead and their father soon to die?”

Berenar, looking surprised at the question, gave Maia a brief overview of the girls’ immediate family — clarifying for him the barb the Archprelate had aimed at his cousin — as well as of their maternal line. In the end, Maia decided they should be taken in by Prince Orchenis, their brother-by-marriage, as Berenar had no doubts of the man’s probity and loyalty.

“We also have news regarding the first coup against you, Serenity,” Berenar said. “The Witness for the Prelacy was complicit in that coup; he later switched his allegiance to Dach’osmer Tethimar. He is in the Esthoramire, the Corazhas remains short one member, and until a new Witness for the Prelacy can be appointed the Archprelate will be asked to fulfill that role.”

“We have no objection to him doing so, other than that he may be stretched rather thin,” Maia replied. “Is there more news?”

“Yes, Serenity. Osmin Stano Bazhevin had known that the Princess Sheveän was plotting against you, but she feared the princess too greatly to speak out against her. Tethimar imprisoned the Bazhevada because Osmin Bazhevin had competed for your hand against Dach’osmin Tethimin, Osmer Bazhevar had competed for the hand of the archduchess against Dach’osmer Tethimar, and the count had pushed relentlessly for both alliances. Osmin Duchenin was imprisoned for similar reasons.”

Maia forced himself to neither sigh nor close his eyes. Stano Bazhevin was an idiot. He supposed that dealing with idiots, like dealing with those who hated him for no fault of his own, was yet another inevitability of imperial rule. Then a new question occurred to him.

“We understand that Osmer Nurevis Chavar was imprisoned as close kin to Lord Chavar and thus under suspicion of collusion. We doubt it to be true, or he would have arranged to have us waylaid in his and his father’s apartments. What of Osmer Setheris Nelar, however?”

“As far as we are aware, Osmer Nelar was not implicated in the first coup,” Berenar said. “Dach’osmer Tethimar had more or less anyone associated with the Lord Chancellor’s office imprisoned, other than a few nobles with connections to the Tethimada.”

 _Of course he did._ “For the moment, Lord Berenar, we would like a pair of guards to attend Osmin Bazhevin. We intend to relegate her once she has fully recuperated. If she is able to be up and about before her relegation, she may be confined to her suite at court in the interim.”

“Serenity,” Berenar said in acquiescence.

Most of the day was given over to a ceremony of reinvestiture in the Untheileian, with a more formal recoronation ceremony to come at a later date. The Untheileneise’meire would have been the correct place for both, but, as Maia was led to understand, it could not be used again until the Archprelate and his canons had reconsecrated it against the bloodshed and dark magic that had been carried out within it. In addition, Dach’osmin Tativin’s cannon had left soot on all its surfaces and badly damaged one of the pillars. Between the soot and the other physical befoulments, it would be some time before the Untheileneise’meire could be cleaned as vigorously as was required.

The ceremony itself did not take overly long. But it was followed by an endless parade of courtiers to the dais, including the new heads of all the houses implicated in the Tethimadeise coup. They had not needed to be summoned, as Lord Berenar had suggested earlier, for they were quite eager to publicly profess their fealty to Maia as floridly as possible. The most amusing of these was Csoru Zhasanai, whose eyes were as wide as saucers with affected innocence and who all but simpered her words. Maia did not laugh at her or repudiate her, but neither did he give her more than the token nod and few words of acceptance. He did likewise for his half-sister Nemriän, her hard face somewhat less so now, and her husband the Marquess Imel. Neither of them merited any more favor than Csoru did, but, he thought, it would be pleasant not to have Nemriän simmering with contempt and enmity for him every time he was in her presence.

Far more agreeable was his bedside visit with Taris Rishonar that evening, Hithera present as well. Taris was recuperating in one of several large suites of rooms that had been turned into an impromptu hospital for the wounded of the battle, with Doctor Ushenar, Kiru Athmaza, and the physicians formerly allied with the Tethimada presiding over it.

Upon Maia’s appearance, Hithera dropped him a surprisingly formal bow; Maia wondered who had taught him that. Taris pushed himself up slightly from his supine position, even that modest motion making his face tighten and ears flatten with pain. “We regret we cannot bow to you just now, Serenity,” he said weakly, with a faint smile, as Maia took a chair by his bedside and clasped his hand.

“We would be most irate if you tried,” Maia replied. “How are you feeling?”

“Well… we sleep most of the time. It hurts when we breathe. Kiru Athmaza gives us herbs for the pain, and it helps, but she says time and rest must take their effects.”

“Kiru Athmaza is wise,” Maia said. “And how farest thee, Hithera?”

“I am well, Serenity,” Hithera replied. “Much better since Kiru Athmaza told me Taris’d live.”

“And how art enjoying the Untheileneise Court?”

“Well… there is a lot to see. And all of it indoors.” Hithera spoke the last words with a mix of wonderment and wistfulness. “I’d no idea there was so much … indoors, anywhere.”

“Aye, not like Rishonee, is’t?” Taris murmured, his tone matching his brother’s.

“No,” Hithera said, his smile somewhat sad.

“Well, we plan to return thee to thy village and thy kin within the next week,” Maia said. To Taris he said, “We are told there is a model of airship both sturdy enough to withstand winter winds and small enough to land safely amid high mountain peaks. With Hithera we will send a letter by our own hand, explaining that you are alive but wounded and in the care of the Ethuveraz’s best physicians, and that we hope to send you back to them as well no later than summer’s end. We will also send gifts expressing our gratitude for your and your brother’s company on our journey, and our sympathy to the rest of your family for the temporarily loss of you both.”

Taris gave him an abashed half-smile. “We are sorry we could not be more use to you in the balcony.”

Maia squeezed his hand. “It is nothing you or Min Dichin could have anticipated. But your help to us from the moment we left Rishonee the second time until the moment you charged Dach’osmer Tethimar was invaluable. And thine too, Hithera.”

Hithera blinked. “In sooth, Serenity?” He spoke as though he expected Maia to be but jesting with him.

Maia smiled as, like Vosa in the warehouse in Chezhvaho, he flicked Hithera’s nearer ear and made the boy grin. “In sooth. Didst work as hard as thine elders, and didst bear the same hardships as the rest of us.” And, he thought, the boy had helped keep Mireän and Ino entertained.

The nobles who had been imprisoned in the Nevennamire were elsewhere in the makeshift hospital. Maia inquired after them all, but there was only one to whom he owed a visit.

“Serenity,” Nurevis Chavar said wearily, sitting up in bed as he approached. The deprivations of prison had whittled away the solidity of his form, leaving him rawboned and wan. His ears hung low, and he was dressed in the plain white bedclothes of hospital patients. His elegant wardrobe, Maia thought, would have long since gone to the auction house.

“How are you feeling, Osmer Chavar?” Maia asked politely.

Nurevis flinched at the formal address. “Well… we have been better,” he said with an unconvincing laugh. “We are to remain here for most of the next week, until an inflammation we have been suffering is gone. And then we are to leave for our father’s estate in southern Thu-Athamar.” Where, without the forfeited wealth of his uncle’s extensive holdings, he would be just another poor relation to patch-pocket nobility, without title as well as money.

After an awkward pause, Maia said quietly, “House Tethimada is to be extirpated. You and the others who were wrongly imprisoned will receive some restitution for your ordeals.” He did not mention that Osmin Bazhevin, who would henceforth be an unwilling guest of the crown, would not receive such monies. “While we could not swear to it, not knowing much of the subject, the sum may be enough to establish yourself in a business of some sort.”

“Your Serenity is very gracious,” Nurevis said softly, but he could not meet Maia’s eyes, and his ears lowered further. Maia wondered if becoming even a successful tradesman was more shameful to him than remaining impoverished kin to an impoverished nobleman.

Unable to stop himself, Maia blurted, “We are sorry.” When Nurevis gaped at him, Maia added, “We did like you. We have no enmity toward you, and we wish this could have ended differently.”

At last, Nurevis said slowly, “None of the others are willing to admit they were once our friend. We thank you, Serenity.”

There was nothing more to be said that would not make this painful, but needful, final meeting worse. “Fare you well, Nurevis,” Maia said, rising.

Nurevis bowed his head. “And you, Serenity,” he all but muttered.

Shortly before bed, at the desk in the Tortoise Room, Maia penned the letter to Veris Rishonar and Biteän Rishonaran that he had promised Taris. In it he praised their sons highly for all their help to him in the preceding weeks, and he extended an invitation to his eventual recoronation to them and their eldest daughter Milu. Even as he wrote the words, he knew the invitation would be spurned, and with that knowledge there arose a dread in him for Taris and Hithera. Taris had already been scorned by his fellow villagers for merely planning to leave Rishonee; how would he be received upon his return, after more than half a year away from it? And how would Hithera, who unlike Taris would not for many years yet be able to leave Rishonee for good if it proved necessary?

“Come in,” he called out to a knock on the door, setting completed letter down. Csevet entered, with Sehalis Adremaza and Kiru Athmaza trailing him.

“Serenity,” the Adremaza said with a bow. “A short while ago we left the dach’osmichen with your household steward, who then reunited them with Prince Idra. We did not witness the reunion, but from the sounds we heard down the corridor it is a joyous one indeed. As for the other matter we alluded to in our letter: you know Kiru Athmaza, and we hope you will accept her as your new … nohecharis.”

 _Nohechar_ o, Maia silently corrected him as Kiru bowed to him and Telimezh entered the room to relieve Beshelar. “We do,” he said. He looked about at his other nohecharei and saw nothing but approval and relief written on their faces. Turning back to the Adremaza, he continued, “We hope you will forgive our brevity, but we are still reaccustoming ourself to our routine, and we are quite fatigued at the moment. Therefore — Adremaza, Mer Aisava, Cala Athmaza, and Lieutenant Beshelar — we bid you all a good night. Kiru Athmaza and Lieutenant Telimezh, we do believe we are ready to be brought to our edocharei and prepared for bed.”

***

The audience Maia had been dreading took place the following day. Afterward, he reflected, it had gone about as well as it conceivably could have. Which was no commendation.

Hesero, exquisitely dressed and coiffed as always, had accompanied Setheris. Maia highly suspected she had hoped to have the same effect on him again that she had had the first time they met. But he had since seen many other beautiful and sophisticated women by now, and he had also been impressed by the likes of Valto Dichin and Kiru Athmaza — not to mention his own betrothed. Hesero Nelaran no longer stood out to him in any way at all other than that she was wed to Setheris Nelar.

The post of civil liaison had gone to another barrister while Setheris was in the Nevennamire; he had requested the audience with Maia in hopes of being appointed to a new post. In his mind’s eye Maia again watched his cousin, moving stiffly and slowly, face more heavily lined than it had been mere months ago, lower himself carefully to the Tortoise Room carpet in full prostration. He thought of how little satisfaction he had obtained from the sight of his tormentor hobbled and further aged by his imprisonment, from addressing Setheris in the informal while speaking of himself in the formal and forcing him to reply in kind, from demanding the account of his relegation from him and, after all these years, finally hearing it.

He took even less satisfaction in recalling how he had reacted to Hesero’s pleas: by rolling up his sleeve over the newly hardened muscles of his forearm and letting the silver scar tissue glint at her in the firelight. And by directing bitter questions at Setheris: _Remember’st dealing us this,_ cousin? _Throwing us into the firescreen? Or didst drink that particular memory away?_

Hesero had backed away from Maia, face ashen, ears completely fallen. Maia had immediately been struck with both guilt and pity. It was not her fault that Setheris had beaten Maia, or that she had not known of his cruelties. She was blatantly horrified to learn of them. Though Maia had freed Setheris from prison and promised him some sort of post — well away from court, to be sure — he had, in a way, taken Hesero’s husband from her all over again.

He took far more heart in thinking of Cala offering to rebutton his cuff for him when his own shaking hands could not, Cala’s eyes filled with the same cold anger Maia recalled from the stone shack. And Beshelar’s later explosion of outrage.

They could not be his friends, he thought. They were far more than that to him. And he to them.

His next meeting was with Vorzhis Gormened, who informed him that just after the first coup he had chosen to remain in the Ethuveraz to gather intelligence as best he could. He had sent a letter by airship to the Corat’ Dav Arhos, warning the Great Avar of the most recent turn of events, whereupon the Avar had immediately canceled his impending state visit. However, Gormened had sent a similar letter yesterday morning, informing Maru Sevraseched that his grandson had retaken the throne, and this morning’s airship from Barizhan contained a missive informing Gormened that the Avar’s interest in visiting had been rekindled.

“We understand your recoronation will be on Springnight, Serenity,” Gormened said. “We will have only six weeks to plan, whereas we had begun planning for Winternight eight weeks before. That said, some of our earlier planning may be applied to the rescheduled visit. And …well, there is at least one less individual you would have to convince of the wisdom of these plans.”

“We would anticipate far less resistance overall now than we did then,” Maia said drily. “On another note, Mer Gormened, we wish to thank you for lending your Hezhethoreise Guardsmen to the efforts in the Untheileneise’meire the other night.”

Gormened shook his head. “We did not make that decision. Once Inver and Belu had seen to our and Nadaro’s safety in the Untheileian, they could not wait to return to the battle and, as Belu put it, ‘break open a few Tethimadeise heads.’”

Three months ago, the phrase would have appalled Maia; now, he suppressed a smile. “We are grateful for their efforts.”

Over the course of the day Maia also learned that Osmerrem Danivaran had passed away on Winternight. He was saddened that he had not been able to say farewell to her, and that she had not lived to see him restored to the throne. On the other hand, he was glad she had not lived to hear of the carnage of Winternight or see Dach’osmer Tethimar as regent. He resolved to grant Osmin Danivin a modest sum of money to offset the cost of her mother’s funeral and her near-future living expenses. And, he thought, he would offer to find her a post suitable for a minor noble if she so desired.

After his lengthy dinner with Arbelan Drazharan, who broke court protocol by embracing him tightly at both the start and the end of the meal, there was one final appointment on Maia’s schedule for the day. Though he did not dread it as he had dreaded the audience with Setheris, his stomach yet clenched in apprehension.

The chamber was a small and little-used one in an out-of-the way corner of the Alcethmeret. A stone-faced Beshelar had agreed to remain outside the door while Cala accompanied Maia inside. As he approached the door he could hear two feminine voices chatting animatedly. _Of course,_ he thought. _They must be discussing weaponry._

Leaning against the inside wall, her injured arm in a sling, was Valto Dichin. As it would have been improper for a young unmarried woman and a young unmarried man to sit in the room alone with the door closed, she had agreed to play chaperone until Maia’s arrival.

Seated at a small, round table were Csevet and Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin. They both rose — Dach’osmin Ceredin’s expression smoothly composed, Csevet’s evincing a subtle tension visible only to those who knew him well enough — and bowed to him, as did Valto. “Serenity,” they all said in unison.

“Good evening to you all,” Maia said.

“And that’s our cue to leave.” Valto turned to bow to Dach’osmin Ceredin, though not as deeply as she had to Maia. “It was a pleasure speaking with you, Dach’osmin.”

“The pleasure was ours, Min Dichin,” Dach’osmin Ceredin said with a smile that, Maia thought, was quite engaging.

“Good night to you as well, Mer Aisava,” Valto said, and as Csevet murmured a reciprocal goodnight she slipped out the door. Cala closed it behind her, then took up his place against the wall.

Maia sat down in the third chair, clasped his hands before him, and said, “Dach’osmin Ceredin, we have asked that you meet with us and Csevet here tonight because we feel we owe you … a perspective on our exile, and a request for permission of sorts.”

Dach’osmin Ceredin’s brows had drawn together at Maia’s informal reference to Csevet, and she frowned in puzzlement now at his opaque phrasing. “Go on, please, Serenity,” she said.

Maia drew a deep breath and said, “We do not know how much information about our exile has been circulating at court in the last few days. We have spoken of it only to the Untheileneise Guard, and only the barest outline thereof, and they are unlike to have shared it widely. We would like to begin by telling you that Csevet was the one to free us from the monastery to which the Princess Sheveän had relegated us two weeks before.”

Dach’osmin Ceredin’s brows rose now. Maia, remembering that she might not have overheard Tethimar’s admission herself or heard it secondhand, added, “In order to do so, he was forced to slay a man in monk’s garb who was about to strangle us.”

Her eyes widened, and she glanced at Csevet. She had looked upon him with respect after his fight with Tethimar, but the respect in her gaze was now deepened. Csevet turned pink to the tips of his ears, which dipped and flicked, and glanced away from her.

Maia went on, “The two of us escaped from Azharee — the monastery — and spent the next three-odd months in one another’s company, living very meanly most of the while. And…” He swallowed. “We became close. Very close.”

Dach’osmin Ceredin blinked at him. “That is not surprising, Serenity.” Left patently unsaid was, _So unsurprising that we wonder at your need to tell us so._

There was, he guessed, no way to convey the truth without further circumlocutions that could just as easily be not understood. Maia held her gaze directly and said, “We became lovers. Which we remain.”

The room was silent for a full minute. Dach’osmin Ceredin stared blankly at Maia for at least half that minute, while Csevet stared down at the table. Then she asked carefully, “So you are marnis, Serenity?”

“We … are not sure. We are drawn to women as well as men.”

She almost, but not completely, concealed her look of relief. Maia realized she must have feared him regarding his marital duties to her as nothing but a chore. He added, “We were not so ill raised, however, that we do not realize how scandalous the idea of a liaison between two men is. Especially if one of them is emperor. And, moreover, we realize that for us it would be adulterous.”

Dach’osmin Ceredin was silent for a moment. Then she said, “We have been told that we should not be surprised nor dismayed if our future husband the emperor were to take a mistress. We were not pleased by that information, but we accepted it. We were not, however, warned that he might take a male lover.”

Maia scanned her face for signs of revulsion or anger and found none. He chose to be direct once again: “Dach’osmin, does the notion offend you? That is, in ways the notion of a mistress would not?”

“If we may be honest, Serenity?”

“Of course,” Maia said, steeling himself for her reply.

“We are not entirely sure what we feel about this, as we were not expecting it. That said, however, the circumstances surrounding this … matter mitigate it in three ways. First, of course, Mer Aisava brought you back to the throne of the Ethuveraz, and therefore to us. We therefore owe him a debt that we will never be able to repay.”

Csevet looked up now. “Please, do not consider yourself in debt to us, Dach’osmin,” he said anxiously.

She waved her hand. “The entire Ethuveraz is in debt to you, Mer Aisava, and that includes us. Second, Serenity, did you read the letter we sent you yesterday?”

“We did,” Maia said. “You wrote of a ‘personal score’ you had to settle with Dach’osmer Tethimar?”

Her face darkened and her ears flattened. “Late in the evening after Winternight, he accosted us in a corridor and pressed us up against a wall. No one else was in the immediate vicinity. We do not habitually go about armed, and we were therefore at a disadvantage.”

All the color had drained out of Csevet’s face and ears. Maia’s stomach heaved. Dach’osmin Ceredin went on flatly: “He addressed us in the informal and told us he intended to ‘have’ us, as we had ‘belonged’ to you and thus, now, to him.”

“Were — are you all right?” Maia asked.

She laughed bitterly. “If you are asking whether he violated us? No, he did not, although that was clearly his aim. We were able to stamp on his foot and get our knee into his groin, which we do not believe he was expecting from a noblewoman, and it gave us the opportunity to flee. And, as we anticipated pursuit and capture, we did not cease to flee until we had left court completely and were out in the city of Cetho.”

Csevet’s brows were nearly in his hair. Maia asked, “So… you hid outside court for several weeks?”

“We did, Serenity. We managed to compose ourself, and we sought out the house of a weaponsmaster with whom we had trained in our adolescence. He was alarmed for us, and he insisted not only upon taking us in but traveling with us to Cairado, where he left us in the hands of a trusted colleague who trains only commoners and is thus unknown at court. We stayed with the latter for the next several weeks, sparring regularly with him in his courtyard. We tried to repay him as best we could by organizing his lesson plans and writing correspondence for him, as well as assisting his housekeeper with her duties.” She smiled wryly. “We are sure we made a poor job of that last bit, but she was patient with us.”

“And you had no contact with the archduchess or the other ladies of the intellectual circle?” Maia asked.

She shook her head. “No, Serenity. We did not wish to put them, or our parents, in danger, so we contacted nobody we knew from court. Therefore we knew nothing of their plans, nor of the Athmaz’are’s and later your plans. However, we knew we could not continue to impose upon the Cairadeise weaponsmaster. Thus we decided that, as a patriotic _Thu_ who is able to handle herself in a swordfight, it was our duty to … remove the stain of Eshevis Tethimar from the Elflands if we could. The Midwinter Ball seemed the idea time to strike at him.”

“So you returned to court and… procured a guardsman’s uniform?” Maia asked.

“No, Serenity. We disguised ourself so before leaving Cairado. It is always perilous for a woman to travel alone, and it was especially so after the second coup. The weaponsmaster had been a guardsman in his youth, the uniform is much the same now as it was then, and his old one fit us well enough. We did have to ask his housekeeper to alter the trousers somewhat, of course, and pad out the jacket shoulders. A few mornings ago we packed a few dried apples and strips of jerky, scabbarded our sunblade, and waited by the Istandaärtha for a steamboat from Barizhan to dock. Falling in among the longshoremen for a while allowed us to slip into the hold unseen, and we emerged in Cetho. Not wanting to be challenged by actual guardsmen, we hid in a storage shed until shortly before sundown, at which point we hastened to the Untheileneise’meire and hid among the sarcophagi. It is strange, in retrospect, that we did not encounter any of your companions, nor they us, until they announced themselves.”

“Did you participate in the battle, Dach’osmin?” Csevet asked her, wide-eyed.

She shook her head. “We know how to fight a duel, and how to defend ourself with the sunblade. But we were not trained for military combat in a formation, and we did not wish to inadvertently hinder your men in battle nor force them to waste their energies defending us if our sex were revealed. We waited for Dach’osmer Tethimar to approach our hiding place, but he did not. However, once the cannon was fired, we took advantage of the smoke to deal a few wounds to his followers and to follow him up the stairs to the emperor’s balcony.”

“And so the mystery of your disappearance is resolved,” Maia observed.

“Yes, Serenity. And your and Mer Aisava’s drawing Dach’osmer Tethimar to the balcony gave us the opportunity to pay him back for his assault upon our person.”

“We are glad we could provide such an opportunity,” Maia said. “But you mentioned a third mitigating factor, Dach’osmin?”

“Ah, yes, Serenity. Do you know much of military history?”

“We are afraid we do not,” Maia said. It had not been something that had interested Setheris at all; his opinion was that matters of war were the province of men who “think with their hands, not their brains.”

“Then you have never heard of the Holy Lovers of Tithlo?” she asked.

“We have heard of Tithlo,” Maia said, stumbling a bit on the odd cluster of consonants. “It is an ancient city in Ilinveriär, is it not?”

“Yes, Serenity. Centuries before the Ethuveraz was united, the Holy Lovers were the elite force of the Ilinveriäreise Army. They were a battalion composed solely of pairs of men in love with one another. It was said by the philosophers of their nation that no worthy fighting man would shame himself or betray his lover by deserting him in the hour of peril.”

Csevet was pink again, a much darker pink than before. “You do us undeserved honor with such a comparison, Dach’osmin,” he murmured.

“Mer Aisava,” she said with asperity. “Will you force us to state repeatedly that you, along with His Serenity’s other companions, have done the Ethuveraz a great honor? Your modesty is appreciated but, in sooth, there are limits.”

He was smiling now, and he dared a glance at her. “Thank you, Dach’osmin.”

“Now, as for the liaison that you speak of,” she went on, “we would not wish for you to discuss it with us unless it were of dire necessity, and we would _hope_ you would be circumspect, so as not to provoke scandal.”

“Of course, Dach’osmin,” Maia said sharply.

She flushed a little. “We apologize; we did not mean to insult your intelligence anew. We are, however, mindful that your short reign has suffered two coups. What the Ethuveraz needs more than anything else right now is stability. Boring, workmanlike stability, with as little prurient gossip as possible.”

“We believe Mer Aisava is cognizant of such a need,” Maia said, looking to Csevet, “and more than capable of fulfilling it. He was the picture of propriety before we were relegated, and he has been so since our return.”

“His Serenity does me great honor,” Csevet said, this time holding Dach’osmin Ceredin’s gaze without looking away.

“Well, you do seem to have helped him pull his household into order in a very short time,” she observed. “Given the circumstances, that was no small feat.” Csevet ducked his head in appreciation, his ears flicking again. “In any event, we do not object to the liaison at this juncture. In fact, the more we consider it, the more we think we would prefer he keep you as a lover, Mer Aisava, than procure a mistress. At the very least, there would be no bastards.”

Maia’s face felt as hot as Csevet’s looked. Dach’osmin Ceredin finished, “If we come to believe that the liaison poses a threat to the throne, or to our relationship with you, Serenity, we will voice our objections. Until that moment, our only stipulations are discretion and consideration.”

“We see no reason we cannot meet both,” Maia said, attempting not to pitch off his chair with the force of his relief.

“Then, presumably, we may call an end to this meeting,” she said briskly. As she began to stand, she stopped, seeming to recall something. “Serenity, we did mean to ask you why you do not dance.”

He blinked at her. “We do not know how.”

“We would be more than happy to teach you, if you wished.”

“Would… that be a bother?” he asked hesitantly.

She snorted. “We have known how since the age of five. And there is little else to do in winter.”

“If you would not mind, Dach’osmin….” Csevet began hesitantly. They both looked at him, and he said, “We would be willing to aid you as a teacher. We have been dancing since roughly the same age, although we imagine some of the dances are … rather less stately than you are accustomed to.”

A slow smile spread across her face. She was not a pretty woman, but when she was pleased, Maia thought, she radiated a warm, generous charm. “Perhaps for a few of the sessions. It might cause talk if you joined us each time. But we, too, would be interested in learning such dances. An empress is supposed to set the fashions at her court. We are not much for fashion, and so it would please us to have such weapons to hand. If you will.”

***

He was entering the imperial bedchamber, his heart greatly buoyed by the success of the day’s final meeting, when he stopped short and nearly caused Beshelar and Cala to run into him.

Five figures, four goblin-dark and one elven-pale, bowed deeply to him. As they straightened up, a familiar voice said, “Welcome home, Serenity.”

“Nemer!” Maia exclaimed, and scandalized all present by rushing over and taking the edocharis’s hands in his. “You are alive and well! And Avris, and Esha — and Isheian!”

The little serving girl cast her eyes downward, then lifted them up again. He would not have believed it, but she giggled at him. “Yes, Serenity,” she said. “We all are.”

“And you…” Maia peered at the fifth figure, a woman about twenty years old. “Have we met you before?”

She smiled shyly. “We are Suler Zhavanin, Serenity. We are — were — nursery maid to Dach’osmichen Mireän and Ino.”

“An you wish to return to that post,” Maia said, “we doubt a replacement has been so soon appointed, the dach’osmichen having been back for only a day.” A wave of relief crashed over Suler’s face. Maia then turned back to Nemer. “Where did you all go?”

“To Esha’s and Isheian’s family in Barizhan, hard by the Corat’ Dav Arhos,” Nemer said. “We left in the dark hours after — after Winternight happened. We were all afraid. We had … heard stories about Dach’osmer Tethimar.”

Declining to pick up that thread of conversation, Maia said, “We did not know you were kin to Esha, Isheian.”

“She’s our younger cousin, Serenity,” Esha said. “We have a large family. We’re far from rich folks, but they made room for the five of us, and the harvest was good last year. We all helped out as best we could. The good news arrived this morning in the Dav, while we were there running an errand. We hurried back to the house and told everyone, and we all knew at once we wanted to come back, so we pooled and borrowed whatever money we could and got on the next airship north from the Dav.”

“Your return is more than welcome,” Maia said — then noticed Sheris Mitova and Helera Corvezh standing anxiously in the doorway to the bathing chamber. “Mer Mitova, Helera,” he said, feeling vaguely guilty. “We apologize, but these three young men are our former edocharei, and we very much wish to bring them back into our household. Your service has been excellent, however, and we would be more than happy to write you letters of reference and help you find other positions at court, or elsewhere if you prefer.”

“Serenity!” Beshelar hissed. “Your steward, Merrem Esaran, is the one who would write such a letter.”

“We stand corrected,” Maia said. “Our steward, Merrem Esaran, will write you such letters upon our request, and we would be more than happy to affix our seal to them. In the meantime, could we please ask you both to show Nemer, Esha, and Avris how you have organized the bathing chamber? You will be paid for tonight’s work, of course.”

Mitova and Helera both bowed to him, and for two men who had just lost their positions they looked surprisingly delighted. “Your Serenity is far too kind,” Mitova said. He and Helera followed the others into the bathing chamber as Isheian and Suler, smiling anew, each dropped Maia a final curtsey and left respectively for the kitchens and the nursery.


	18. Epilogue: Springnight

“Beloved,” Maia murmured as he began to press inch by inch into Csevet. Csevet pulled Maia’s head down for another kiss, sliding his tongue into Maia’s mouth as Maia’s cock slid into his body.

Maia uttered a stifled groan. He thought he would never become used to the hot, silken feel of Csevet around him, the solid warmth of Csevet’s muscles against his own, the flush that darkened Csevet’s cheeks and ears when he was awash in pleasure. With a burst of passion he fisted his hand in Csevet’s hair, which now hung well below his shoulders, and tugged on it — something Csevet had asked him to do several times before, but only now did it feel natural, not awkward or brutish. Csevet’s pupils blossomed even more darkly within the grey of his eyes, which he then closed with a moan. He contracted hard enough around Maia to nearly expel him, and Maia gasped at the pain-edged pleasure of it.

Reaching down, he grabbed Csevet’s ankles, then drew them up onto his own shoulders. Each new thrust now took him deep into Csevet’s body, wringing soft whimpers out of his lover as Csevet clawed at the sheets with his lengthened nails. _Would I could mark thee with them,_ he’d whispered during a previous tryst, _so every time changed’st clothes or bathed’st they’d remind thee of how hard fucked’st me the night before._ Alas, edocharei talked.

He thought, now, of letting Csevet score him with his nails, of letting his edocharei and thus the entire court know that Csevet had marked him for his own. And he gasped again as the thought tilted him toward climax, his stones drawing in and his cock beginning to spasm. “Csevet,” he blurted, pressing Csevet’s ankles hard against his shoulders as he hammered into him, each thrust accompanied by the salacious slap of flesh on flesh. He stared down at the juncture of their bodies and marveled at the contrast of his indigo-tinted cockstand pistoning in and out between the firm snow-white mounds of Csevet’s buttocks. 

And he began to shudder. “Csevet,” he said again, the word falling apart on his lips as he spent while halfway inside Csevet, thrusting again, fucking his own seed into him as Csevet wrapped one hand around his own cock and, with a loud and prolonged shout, spilled over the side of it.

Spent and sweaty, Maia collapsed on top of him. They lay inert for long, long moments before Csevet said dazedly, “If mine arm is not to begin to prickle, thou must shift thy weight a bit.”

“Forgive me,” Maia said, in no less of a daze. He moved off Csevet and eased himself down beside him. The room’s air began to dry the sweat where they had been pressed together.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Csevet whispered, stroking Maia’s hair and winding a triumphantly long curl about his finger. “However, we’ve been here a while, and in the interest of maintaining discretion — and thou being on time for thy recoronation — we should probably consider departing.”

Maia sighed. He felt an ingrate, as he knew that barring any highly unlikely catastrophes this would not be the very last tryst they ever had. He was, in sooth, an exceedingly fortunate man, and one such aspect of his fortune was his bride’s acquiescence to this liaison. But there were moments he wished he and Csevet could abscond to somewhere sparsely populated — a cave house in Celvaz, a cabin in the Osreialhalans, a cottage by the Chadevan Sea — and spend most of their days naked and blissfully entwined. No mountains of correspondence, no elaborate dances of etiquette, no continual bids for favor, no tedious disputes to litigate, no two-legged serpents in his midst.

_Even did an assassin not eventually find you both, wouldst be bored and restless within a very short time, hobgoblin. And so would Csevet._

_I know,_ he told the voice of Edrehasivar VII in his mind. _I know._

“Why sigh’st so?” Csevet asked as he buttoned his trousers.

Maia shook his head. “It’s nothing but megrims. I must learn not to mire myself in them so much.”

Csevet smiled at him, then, and Maia could have melted into the floor with the love in it.

Five minutes later they strode down a hallway toward the Alcethmeret. Cala and Beshelar, who always kept vigil outside the room where Maia and Csevet trysted, followed them at a short distance.

“We received a letter from Foduama and Khram,” Csevet said casually. “Or, rather, from Foduama, with his signature and her paw print.”

Maia’s head spun about. “Oh?

Csevet’s face was composed, as it always was in public, but his eyes brimmed with emotion. “We will tell you the details later. But, in short, they have returned to their home from her family’s caves. And … he says he has come to understand.”

Over the sudden tightness in his throat, Maia said, “We would like to send them a purse of gold. Enough to recompense them for their troubles and then some.”

“We would suggest also sending spices and herbs that are difficult to procure where they are,” Csevet said. “Enough to share with Fenusu, perhaps.”

“A worthy suggestion,” Maia said.

Csevet’s ears dipped and flicked. “Thank you, Serenity. Did your audience with Min Vechin go well?”

“Quite well.”

It had been awkward, in sooth, Min Vechin’s apology for her willingness to use Maia’s attraction to her, and his expression of forgiveness for her. She was still a very beautiful woman. But he was a very different man than he had been just a few months before. And he was glad that his first experience of lovemaking had been with Csevet, not with Min Vechin. “We hope the meeting with the Corazhas on the nature of the bridge over the Istandaärtha goes even half as well.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said with a rueful humor. “Incidentally, we hear that your sister the archduchess has introduced Nistho Athmaza to her circle of friends. We take it her purpose was, specifically, to introduce her to one Osmin Shesin.”

“The woman who runs the mazeise school for girls?” Maia asked.

“Yes, Serenity.”

“We mean no slight to Osmin Shesin, but we are rather certain Nistho is not in need of her schooling.”

“Quite the opposite, Serenity. Nistho has been lauded and fêted as the hero of the Athmaz’are not only for restoring you to your throne but for having avenged the Athmaz’are upon Dazhis Athmaza — not entirely to Sehalis Athmaza’s liking, we understand, and not only because she employed a blood maz in the effort.” Csevet spoke these words with a wry note in his voice. “Osmin Shesin is very interested in retaining her services as an instructor once she reaches her majority.”

 _Nistho-Teacher,_ Maia thought, recalling the light that Zhadra Athmaza had brought into Nistho’s eyes, how abjectly she had cried over his corpse. Perhaps she would find balm in continuing his teachings, as well as in becoming a role model for other young girls.

“How are the Dichada faring today?” he asked.

“Still more than a little flustered to be at court, save the elder Min Dichin of course,” Csevet said with a hint of affection. “We are sure, however, that in her twilight years the younger Min Dichin will still fondly remember having been dressed by an edocharo for an entire week, and all of them will reminisce for a long time about taking the air with both the Ethuverid Zhas and the Avar Avarsin.”

The Great Avar had arrived with immense pomp and circumstance at the Untheileneise Court a week ago — well ahead of schedule, to the great relief of Vorzhis Gormened. Shortly after having met Maia for the first time, his grandfather had bought him a horse and ordered him to learn to ride it. A few days later, they two, the Dichada, and the First Nohecharei had ridden out to the north of Cetho, keeping to the high road and out of the late-winter mud. Maia found the sensation of being on horseback, without the pleasant distraction of Csevet up against him, still quite odd, and the physical demands of horsemanship had left him sore and stiff for a few days despite a vigorous liniment rubdown afterward by his edocharei. It was a discomfort worth bearing, he thought, if only because his own lack of equestrian experience very likely had given the Dichada no small amount of confidence in their own riding abilities by comparison — something otherwise lacking for them at court.

The Rishonada, to neither his nor Csevet’s surprise, had not accepted the invitation to the recoronation. Mindful of Rishonee’s self-sufficiency, Maia had sent along with Hithera and the invitation not gold but a small crate of food and household items he suspected Biteän Rishonaran could put to excellent use. Veris Rishonar’s reply had been short to the point of curtness: congratulating Maia on regaining his throne, thanking him for the gifts and the return of his younger son, and expressing impatience to be reunited with his eldest son.

Mer Dichar had said, Maia was glad to have heard, that both Taris and Hithera were always welcome at the Dichada farmstead — and to stay for good if they liked, for they were excellent hunters. Taris, who was now able to walk again but who still tired easily, said that he longed to return home but did intend to at least visit the badlands again someday.

Maia’s and Csevet’s walk was long enough to permit discussion of other matters as well. The trials of the surviving Hounds were almost concluded, and though Maia dreaded the executions, which he would be obliged to attend, he was glad the entire matter was speeding to a close. Not only had those wrongly imprisoned by Eshevis Tethimar been compensated monetarily, but so had any number of servants who had suffered violence at his hands or those of his men. One such was Heru, the elven housemaid whom Esaran had summoned on Maia’s first night back in the Alcethmeret. The girl remained wary, her eyes haunted, but in the weeks since Maia’s return she had become more animated and quicker to smile.

After the second coup, Cora Drazhar had fled to the Mazan’theileian and pleaded with Sehalis Adremaza to take him in ahead of schedule, and the Adremaza had readily obliged. As the youngest of novices, he had not been privileged to know of Maia’s concealment among the mazei; and, given how very many elves and goblins had Drazhadeise blood running in their veins and even bore the house’s name, the Adremaza had not assumed that Cora Drazhar and Maia Drazhar perforce knew one another. Shortly before the Great Avar’s arrival at court, Maia had sought out Cora at the Mazan’theileian to congratulate him on his acceptance into the Athmaz’are. The former page had been dumbstruck that his emperor had even remembered him, never mind taken the time to visit him, and quite enthusiastically agreed to keep Maia updated on his progress as a novice.

Accompanying the Great Avar and the Captain of the Hezhethoreise Guard to the Untheileneise Court was one Nadeian Vizhenka — natural daughter to the former, wife to the latter, and half-aunt to Maia. He had half a dozen half-aunts in total, it seemed. He hoped they were all as stimulating company as Nadeian and that he would have the pleasure of meeting each of them someday.

The Barizheise contingent would remain at court until precisely halfway between Springnight and Summernight, when Maia would wed Dach’osmin Ceredin. The closer a wedding was held to the latter date, the more correct it was considered, but Maia would not hear of the Great Avar returning to Barizhan only to make a second trip to Cetho not long after. More selfishly, he was glad of the extra time he would be able to spend with his grandfather, who was a superb source of advice on governance, as well as on how to charm a woman. Too, Maia sadly did not expect that Ulis would grant them another such opportunity to get to know one another. So, for the interim, the old man was leaving his realm in the hands of his ministers and communicating with them biweekly by airmail.

Thara Celehar had been completely absolved by the Council of Prelates and had told Maia of his intent to become a Witness vel ama, an intent in which he had the Archprelate’s full support. The former Untheileneise Guardsmen with whom Telimezh had been keeping company had been inducted back into the Guard — half of them at their bedsides — with promotions and medals for valor. Idra’s tutor, Leilis Athmaza, had been reunited with his pupil.

Maia and Csevet did not discuss Idra now. They never did outside of their trysting chamber, beyond a passing mention. But Maia thought upon his nephew at the mention of Leilis Athmaza. As with Heru, ghosts remained in the boy’s eyes. _They will be there for some time, and thou must be patient with it,_ Csevet had whispered in private a week before while squeezing Maia’s hand. But Idra had regained some of the weight and color he’d lost, and he had slipped back into his role as Prince of the Untheileneise Court with no apparent difficulty. Perhaps, Maia thought, he took comfort in the familiar, as well as in the presence of his sisters and in Maia’s return. Leilis reported that, despite initial inattention and lack of confidence, Idra had begun to excel in his lessons once again. And he had begun to smile and laugh genuinely again as well. He never spoke to Maia of what Eshevis Tethimar had done to him, but each time they parted, he clung tightly to Maia for long moments before releasing him — and Maia to him as well.

Finally, Maia and Csevet spoke of Maia’s wedding plans outside of his hospitality toward his goblin kin. Csevet, Esaran, and Captain Orthema, with some help from the Archprelate and his canons, were coordinating the entire affair. Yet Maia felt positively overwhelmed by the tailoring appointments with Dachensol Atterezh, the menu reviews with Dachensol Ebremis, the sessions of spiritual guidance with the Archprelate for both Maia and Dach’osmin Ceredin, the long and bewildering conversations with Csevet and Lord Berenar about the intricate politics of invitations and seating, the discussions of bann postings and newspaper announcements, the prospect of the upcoming dress rehearsals and portrait sittings…

…and all of that was beside the wedding night itself. Maia, having only the most rudimentary knowledge of what transpired in a marital bed, had more than once expressed his trepidation to Csevet as they lay quietly in one another’s arms. Each time, Csevet had kissed Maia’s hand or cheek or shoulder and said, “Worry not.”

“But … it’s not like being with a man, is’t?” Maia would fret.

And Csevet, soft laughter in his voice, would reply along the lines of, “I could not tell thee from mine own experience. But art gentle and tender, and art willing to listen, and watch, and learn. From all I’ve heard, no matter the sex of one’s lover, these are what matter most. And,” he would conclude with a broad smile, “I cannot believe Dach’osmin Ceredin will fail to tell thee what she likes.” And that, in turn, would make Maia smile.

At long last, they reached the perimeter of the imperial suite within the Alcethmeret. “We are sure our edocharei are eager to begin to prepare us,” Maia said. For the recoronation, the Archprelate had said, the overnight vigil of the initial ceremony would not be necessary; Maia had already been sanctified by the gods to lead the Ethuveraz. Therefore it was not the _keb_ that awaited him again but the long white robe and the treasure trove of silver and moonstone, emeralds and jade. Again, he would not don the Ethuverid Mura until the Archprelate set it upon his head as they stood before the throne.

“We are sure they are as well, Serenity,” Csevet said. Ringing in the air between them unspoken were the words he had whispered to Maia earlier that evening: _I envy them, for it is their duty to lay their hands upon thy naked flesh day and night._

“We are sure we will see you in the Untheileian, then,” Maia said.

Csevet bowed to him, the deepest bow possible short of prostration. In parting, he said merely, “Serenity,” but in his voice and in his eyes Maia heard and saw the word _Beloved._


End file.
